
Saiony & Major I ,i I h . 



117 l',dl,<St.Se«Yo.l 



SOI-E-N-GA-RAH-TA, OR KING HENDRICK. 



IT'iU See r ■t./a. 



' • f] ' 



^77 £-7- e 




NOTES 



THE IROQUOIS; 



OR CONTRIBUTIONS TO 



AMERICAN HISTORY, ANTIQUITIES, 



GENERAL ETHNOLOGY. 



BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, 

Hon. Memb. of the Royal Soc. of Northern Antiquaries : Hon. Mem. of the Royal Geog. Soc. of 

London: Mem. Ordin. of the Ethnological Soc. of Paris: Vice Pie.iident of the Am. Kthn. 

Soc. at New York: Cor. Mem of the New Vorii Lyceum i>f Nat. Hiat : Mem. of 

the Am. Philos. Soc, and of the Am. .U-ad. of the Nat. Sciences at Philad.: 

of the .Ira. Antiq.. and of the Am. fJeoio?. Societies: Hon Mem. 

of the New ITork Hut. Soc: Mem. "of the Hist. Soc. of 

Peonsylvania, Georgia, Rhode Island, Connect! 

cut and Ohio, &c, &c., &c. 



ALBANY: 
ERASTUS H. PEASE & CO., 82 STATE STREET. 

1847. 



Entered according to act of Congres::, in the year, 1847, 
BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Northern District of New York. 

.17^ "^ 



J. MUNSELL, PRINTER, 
ALBANY. 



PREFACE. 



The aboriginal nation, whose statistics and 
history, past and present, are brought into dis- 
cussion in this treatise, stand out prominently 
in the foreground of our own history. They 
have sustained themselves for more than three 
centuries, against the intruding and progressive 
races of Europe. During the period of the 
planting of the colonies, their sachems stood as 
independent embassadors, before the representa- 
tives of kings, and the general eloquence, di- 
plomacy, and military exploits of the several 
cantons composing their confederacy, gave them 
a name and reputation coeval with Europe. No 
nation of the widely spread red race of America, 
has displayed so high and heroic a love of liberty, 
united with the true art of government, and 
personal energy and stamina of character, as the 
Iroquois. The races of the equinoctial latitudes, 



IV PREFACE. 

who obeyed respectively the sceptre of the Incas, 
and of the princes of Anahuac, have indeed 
enlisted a wider sympathy and risen to higher 
fame in the world's history, but it has been the 
fame earned by the labors and arts of subdued 
multitudes, and the sympathy consequent on 
overwhelming national misfortune ; this is the 
difference between the empires of Peru and 
Mexico, and the high-toned Iroquois republic ; 
but neither letters, Christianity, nor liberty, have 
cause to lament the fall of the two former em- 
pires. The policy and wisdom by which the 
Iroquois met and resisted the inroads of Euro- 
pean power, and prevented the overturning of 
their institutions, furnishes the highest evidence 
of their superiority as an active, thinking race of 
men. They watched, as with eagle glance, en- 
croachments upon their national rights. They 
kept their central council fire at Onondaga bright, 
and often met from all the canto'ns, from the 
east and west, to deliberate on their affairs; and 
when a war was resolved on against a trespass- 
ing or impinging foe, of their own race, they 
concentrated every effort to carry it on, and flew 
to the contest to root up, and tear out their name 
and place among men. No leading event, in 
fine, in the history of the colonies, has been 



PREFACE. V 

consummated without the power, in peace or war, 
of the Iroquois. They were present under the 
British standard, at the siege of Niagara, at the 
overthrow of Baron Deiskau, at Lake George, 
and at the fall of Montcalm at Quebec. The 
colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylva- 
nia, felt the strong influence of the policy of their 
confederacy. In any political scheme of the 
colonies, the course of the Iroquois, in the ques- 
tion at issue, was ever one of the deepest moment, 
and he must be a careless reader of history, who 
does not perceive how vital an element they 
became in all the interior transactions, between 
A. D. 1600, at the general period of the settle- 
ment of the colonies, and the close of the war 
of American Independence. 

The stirring events of their wars are mingled, 
more or less, with the history of each of the colo- 
nies, and impart to them much of their interest. 
To extract them and set them in order, as a 
branch of American history, would constitute a 
theme of no ordinary attraction.* But the task 
I had taken in hand did not contemplate a his- 

* It is to be regretted, that Golden, who viewed the subject 
in this light, drops his excellent outlines, (so essential to all 
who wish to study the Iroquois history), with the antique date 
of the peace of Ryswick, A. D. 1697, a period, when, indeed, 
their republic had hardly culminated. 



VI PREFACE. 

tory. It seemed desirable that before the modem 
materials of the Iroquois history could be well 
employed, we should accumulate something 
tangible and certain of their general polity^wars, 
and actual statistics, and also something of the 
ancient period of their earlier traditions, and lore, 
which might help the inquirer to clear up the 
boundaries of historical mystery which shroud 
the Indian period, prior to 1492. This forms the 
true epoch of American ethnology. 

It was a desideratum in American statistics, 
that a complete census, of one of the primary 
stocks, who had lived in our neighborhood all 
this time, and still preserve their nationality, 
should betaken. This task New York executed 
in 1845. It appeared desirable to the agent ap- 
pointed to carry the act of the legislature into 
effect, that the opportunity should not be lost of 
making some notes of the kind here indicated ; 
and it is in this feature indeed, if any thing in 
the following notes, that they aspire to the cha- 
racter of research, though they be intended only 
to shadow forth outlines, to be filled up hereafter. 

In reprinting the original notes, in order to 
supply a demand of the public for them, which 
is still unabated, the occasion has been taken to 
revise them, and to add other j)ortions of the 



PREFACE. Vll 

original materials, which were suppressed in the 
publication, together with some further tradi- 
tions, and biographical and historical notices and 
researches, which it is thought will tend to impart 
further interest and value to the work. 



ERRATA. 
Page 1, 6th line, contents of cliap , for congerity read longevity. 
" 14, 13th line from bottom, tor and read than. 
" 40, lath line from top, for end read era. 
■' 48, 3rd Hue from top. for literary read literally. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Preliminary observations, ..... l 
Obstacles opposed to statistical inquiries among the 

North American Indians, - - - - - 5 

Progressive state of agriculture, ~ .... 9 

Evils of the annuity system, 12 

Grain and fruits raised - 14 

Ancient and present state of the Iroquois population 

compared, 22 

General deductions on their longevity and effects of cli- 
mate, -.-.----- 27 
Proportion of deaf and dumb and blind, - - - 28 
Remnants of the tribes of Algonquin lineage of southern 

New York, 31 

Abstract of census returns, ----- 32 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 

Sketch of the Iroquois group of aboriginal tribes, - 39 

Ethnological suggestions, ...... 5Q 

Indian cosmogony, - - - - - - - 61 

Gleams of their ancient history, .... 64 

1* 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS AS A DISTINCT 
PEOPLE. 

Mohawks, 71 

Oneidas and the Oneida Stone, - - . . 75 

Onondagas, -.--.---88 

Cayugas, - - -92 

Senecas and their origin, ------ 96 

Tuscaroras and their flight from North Carolina, - 104 
Necariages, - - - - - - - -113 

St. Regis colony, - 114 

CHAPTER IV. 
EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE. 

Objects of research, ...... 117 

Era of the confederacy, 117 

Principles of their government and the totemic bond, - 122 

Ancient worship and system of astronomy, - - 137 

Witchcraft, and its theory and practical evils, - • 139 
Wife's right to property ; limited nature of marriage 

contract, -------- 141 

Idea of vampyres ; traditions in reference to, - - 142 

CHAPTER V. 

EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS OF THE IRO- 
QUOIS WITH THE OTHER NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES. 

War with an ancient people called Alleghans, - - 147 

Lenno Lenapees, or Delawares, . - - - 148 

Mohegans, Munsees, Manhattans, Metoacs, - - 150 

Adirondacks, .--.-.-- 152 

Algonquins, -------- 153 

Ovvegungas, -- 154 

Shawnees, 154 

Eries, 155 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Susquehannocks, . - . - 
Massawomacs, . . - - 
Catabas, ..... 

Cherokees, their history and language, 
Quatoghies, or Hurons, ... 
Wyandots, ..... 
Twightwies, or Miamies, ... 
Mississagies, - . - - . 
Chippewa or Odjibwa group, 



155 
155 
156 
157 
161 
164 
165 
16S 
168 



CHAPTER VI. 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



Vestiges of an ancient French fort in Lenox, 
Ancient site of the Onondagas, 
Antiquities of Pompey, - - - - 
Ancient fortification of Osco, - - - 
Ancient elliptical work at Canandaigua, - 
Ancient entrenchments on Fort Hill, 
Ancient rock citadel of Kienuka, 
Ancient battle field on Buffalo creek, 



174 

177 

188 
192 
196 
198 
207 
213 



CHAPTER VII. 
ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART IN NORTH AMERICA. 

Architectural ruins, - 219 

Remains, sculpture and inscriptions, .... 220 

Effect of European fabrics, ..... 220 

Arrow heads and axes, 221 

Pottery, 222 

Architecture, ----.... 224 

Art of design, 225 

Amulets, &c., 226 

Clothing, &c., 229 



XU CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



RELICS FOUND IN THE ANTIQUE GRAVES AND TUMULI 
OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 

Nabikoaguna — medals, ---.-- 231 

Medaeka — amulets, 235 

Attajeguna — implements, &c., ----- 238 

Opoaguna — pipes, ---... 239 

Minacea — beads, 242 

Peaga — wampums, ------ 424 

Mudwamina — jingling dress ornaments, - - - 244 

Otoaguna — ear jewels, - ----- 246 

Ochalisa — nose jewels, ..-.-- 247 

j^sa — shells, coins, ornaments, - - - - 248 



CHAPTER IX. 

ORAL TRADITIONS OF THE IROQUOIS, HISTORICAL AND 
IMAGINATIVE. 

Ancient shipwreck of a vessel on the North American 

coast, --- 251 

Forays into the country of the Cherokees and Catabas, 252 

Exploit of Haideoni, 253 

Seneca embassy of peace to the Cherokees, and heroic 

exploit of Awl, 258 

Grave yard serpent and corn giant, - - - . 259 

Tradition of the siege of Fort Stanwix, - - . 261 

Tradition of the defeat of the Kah-kwahs, - - - 261 

Epoch of the confederacy, ----- 262 

Some passages of their wars with monsters and giants, 262 

The Iroquois Quetzalcoatl, . - . . - 270 



CONTENTS. Xlll 
CHAPTER X. 

TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 

Who were the Eries ? 286 

Building of the first vessel on the upper lakes, - - ^89 

Who were the AUeghans ? . . - . . 305 

"War with the Kah-kwahs, 318 

Antique inscribed stone of Manlius, .... 323 
Original discovery of the Onondaga country by the 

French, 329 

Burning of Schenectady, -.--.. 345 
Antique currency of the Manhattanese and their neigh- 
bors, -----.-.- 355 
Cherokee tradition of the deluge, - . - . 358 
Asiatic origin of the Indian race, .... 360 
Lost colony of Kasonda, -•--.. 373 

CHAPTER XL 

LANGUAGE. 

Structure of the class of American languages, - - 382 
Comparative vocabulary of the Iroquois and its cognate 

the Wyandot, 393 

CHAPTER XIL 

MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION AND PROSPECTS. 

Mission of Pyrlaus and Romeyn - - - - 401 

The Jesuits, 403 

Churches among the Mohawks, &c., ... - 406 

Kirkland — Conversion of Skenandoah, - - - 408 

Evil effects of the war, .-.-.. 409 

Duties of civilized society to the Indians, - - 412 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 

Soiengarahta, or King Hendriclc, - . - . 413 

Infijnt Atotarho of the Onondagas, .... 421 

Red Jacket and the Wyandot claim to supremacy, - 423 

Pocahontas, .---.... 425 

Anecdote of Brant, 427 

Universal suffrage, the Iroquois considered, - - 427 

County clerk and the wolf scalp, - . - . 429 

Family of the Thunderers, 429 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 

Letter from Secretary of State, 
Indian reservations in New York, 
Memoranda, - - - - - 
Sketches of an Indian council, - 
Indian fort at Pompey, ... 
Mr. Cusick's letter on the Tuscaroras, 
David Cusick's book, ... 
Ancient work on Fort Hill, Auburn, - 
Account of Fort Hill, Le Roy, 
Moral and religious state of Tuscaroras, 
Tuscarora vocabulary, ... 
Senecas of Cattaraugus, - . . 
Senecas of Alleghany, ... 
Mohawk and Cayuga vocabularies, 
Statistics of the Oneidas, 
Iroquois laws of descent, ... 
King Hendrick, .... 



435 
437 
438 
461 
468 
473 
475 
479 
480 
485 
487 
489 
492 
493 
493 
495 
497 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Portrait of Soiengarahta, . . - 


Frontispiece. 


Oneida stone, - - - • . 


• 


77 


79,80 


Atotarho, - 








91 


Site of ancient fort in Lenox, - - - 








175 


Ancient site of the Onondagas, - 








178 


Ancient fortification of Osco, - - - 








193 


Ancient elliptical work at Canandaigua, 








197 


Ancient entrenchments on Fort Hill, 








199 


Antique rock citadel of Kienuka, 








210 


Ancient battle field on Buffalo creek, 








215 


Nabikoaguna antique. 








233 


do Iroquois, ... 








234 


do cameo, ... 








235 


do mnemonic, ... 








235 


Medaeka Missouric, ... 








236 


do dental, . - . - 








237 


do okun, . . . - 








238 


Attajeguna Deoseowa, - . - . 








239 


Opoaguna Algonquin, 








240 


do Aztec, . . . . 








241 


do Iberic, .... 








241 


do Etruscan, . . . . 








242 


Minacea Alleghanic, 








243 


Peaga lowan, ..... 








244 


Mudwamina Miskwabic, 








245 


do Ossinic, - . - - 








245 


do Wassaabic, ... 








245 


Otoaguna statuesque, .... 








246 


do pyramydal, - - - 








246 


do bifurcate, .... 








247 


do quadralateral, ... 








247 


Ochalisa Odaa, 








248 


^sa mariginella, . - - . 








248 


Manlius stone, 








324 


Portrait of Pocahontas, to face, - 








425 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



CHAPTEH I. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



Preliminary Observations — Obstacles opposed to Statis- 
tical Inquiries among the North American Indians — 
Progressive State of Agriculture — Evils of the An- 
nuity System — Grains and Fruits Raised — Ancient 
AND Present State of the Iroquois Population compared n , J 

— General Deductions on their GowG«ft*T¥, and Effects / c-'vt^ LV ^ 
OF Climate — Proportion of Deaf and Dumb Persons, v 

Idiots and Blind — Remnants of the Tribes of Algonquin 
Lineage of* Southern New York — Abstract of the 
Census Returns of the Oneidas, Onondagas, Senegas- 
Cayugas and Tuscaroras. 

It is by the numbers of the several tribes of 
our North American stocks of red mpn, com- 
pared with their means of subsistence, and their 
capacity of producing the supply, that we are 
to judge of their advance or declension in the 
scale of civilization. The facts of their former 
history, their achievements in arms, or their at- 
tachment to peculiar modes of life and policy, re- 
tain an interest, irrespective of their present con- 



2 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

dition. But when we perceive a capacity to main- 
tain themselves in the face of a European popu- 
lation, and to adopt the arts and agriculture of a 
higher civilization, the period of their bygone 
supremacy is invested with new interest. We 
seek with the more avidity to know by what 
means they have emerged from their past state, 
the rate of their increase, if there be any, and 
the general capacities they manifest for entering 
into the career of civilized life. Such is the con- 
dition of progress and change, under which we 
are led to inquire into the vital and agricultural 
statistics of the Iroquois. 

The question of the original generic name, by 
which these tribes were denoted, the relation 
they bear to the other aboriginal stocks of Ameri- 
ca, and the probable era of their arrival, and 
location within the present boundaries of this 
state, is one, which was naturally suggested by 
the statistical inquiries before me. Difficult and 
uncertain as any thing brought forward on these 
subjects must necessarily te, it was yet desira- 
ble, in giving a view of the present and former 
condition of the people, that the matter should 
be glanced at. For, although nothing very satis- 
factory might be stated, it Avas still conceived 
to be well to give some answer to the intelligent 
inquirer, to the end, that it might at least be 
perceiA^ed the subject had not escaped notice. 

A tropical climate, ample means of subsist- 
ence, and llieir consetjuonce, a concentrated 
and (ixed i)()pulati<>n, niised the ancient inhabit- 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 3 

ants of Mexico, and some other leading nations 
on the continent, to a state of ease and semi-civil- 
ization, which have commanded the surprise 
and admiration of historians. But it may be said, 
in truth, that, in their fine physical t}^e, and 
in their energy of character, and love of inde- 
pendence, no people, among the aboriginal race, 
have ever exceeded, if any has ever equalled, 
the Iroquois. 

Discoveries made in the settlement of New 
York, west of the De-o-wain-sta, or Stanwix 
Summit, have led to the belief, that there has 
been an ancient period of occupation of that fertile 
and expanded portion of the state, which terminat- 
ed prior to the arrival of the Iroquois. Evidences 
have not been wanting to denote, that a higher 
degree of civilization than any of these tribes 
possessed, had, at a remote period, begun to de- 
velope itself in that quarter. But, hitherto, the 
notices and examinations of the antiquities re- 
ferred to, although highly creditable to the ob- 
servers, and abounding in interest, have served 
rather to entangle, than reveal, the archaeologi- 
cal mystery which envelopes them. Some of 
these antiquarian traits, not appearing to the first 
settlers to be invested with the importance as 
industrial or military vestiges, now attached to 
them, have been nearly or quite obliterated 
by the plough. The spade of the builder and 
excavator has overturned others ; and at the rate 
of increase, which has marked our numbers and 
industry, since the close of the revolutionary 



4 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

war, little or nothing- of this kind will remain, 
in a perfect state, very long. 

To gratify the moral interest belonging to the 
subject, by full and elaborate plans and descrip- 
tions, would require time and means, very dif- 
ferent from any at my command at that time ; 
but the topic was one which admitted of inci- 
dental attention, while awaiting decisions and 
obviating objections, which some of the tribes 
urged to the general principles and policy of the 
census. And while the subject of full archseo- 
logical and ethnological survey of the state is 
left as the appropriate theme of future research, 
facts and traditions, bearing on these subjects, 
were obtained and minuted down, at various 
points. 

In availing myself of the liberty extended to 
me in this particular, by the instructions of the 
legislature, I have, in fact, improved every pos- 
sible means of information. Notes and sketch- 
es were taken down from the lips of both white 
and red men, wherever the matter itself and the 
trust- worthiness of the individual appeared to jus- 
tify them. Many of the ancient forts, barrows 
and general places of ancient sepulchre were visit- 
ed, and of some of them, accurate plans, diagrams 
or sketches made on the spot, or obtained from 
other hands. A general interest was manifested 
in the subject by the citizens of western New 
York, wherever it was introduced, and a most 
ready and obliging disposition evinced, on all 
hands to promote the inquiry. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTUEAL STATISTICS. O 

The present being the first time* tliat a for- 
mal and full census of a nation or tribe of In- 
dians has been called for, with their industrial 
efforts, by any American or European govern- 
ment exercising authority on this continent, the 
principles and policy of the measure presented 
a novel question to the Iroquois, and led to ex- 
tended discussions. As these discussions, in 
which the speakers evinced no little aptitude, 
bring out some characteristic traits of the peo- 
ple, it may be pertinent, and not out of place 
here, briefly to advert to them. 

As a general fact, the policy of a censns, and 
its beneficial bearings on society, were not un- 
derstood or admitted. f It seemed to these an- 
cient cantons to be an infringement on that 
independence of condition which they still 
claim and ardently cherish. In truth, of all sub- 
jects upon which these people have been called 
on to think and act, during our proximity to them 
of two or three centuries, that of political econo- 
my is decidedly the most foreign and least 
known to them, or appreciated by them, and 
the census movement was, consequently, the 

* It forms no contradiction to the precise terms of this re- 
mark, that the Legislature of Virginia directed the number- 
ing of the Powhattanic tribes, within its boundaries, in 1788. 
Vide JeffersoTi's Notes on Virginia. 

t To this remark, the Tuscaroras, who met the subject at 
once, in a frank and confidential manner, and the Onondagas, 
who appeared to be governed therein by the counsels of a 
single educated chief, form exceptions. 



6 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

theme of no small number of suspicions and ca- 
vils and objections. Without any certain or 
generally fixed grounds of objection, it was yet 
the object of a fixed but changing opposition. 
If I might judge, from the scope of remarks 
made both in and out of council, they regarded 
it as the introduction of a Saxon feature into their 
institutions, which, like a lever, by some pro- 
cess not apparent to them, was designed, in its 
ultimate effects, to uplift and overturn them. 
And no small degree of pith and irony was put 
forth against it by the eloquent respondents who 
stood in the official attitude of their ancient ora- 
tors. Everywhere, the tribes exalted the ques- 
tion into one of nationtil moment. Grave and 
dignified sachems assembled in formal councils, 
and indulged in long and fluent harangues to 
their people, as if the very foundations of their 
ancient confederacy were about to be over- 
turned by an innovating spirit of political arith- 
metic and utilitarianism. When their true views 
were made known, however, after many days 
and adjourned councils, I found there was less 
objection to the mere numbering of their tribes 
and- families, than the (to them) scrutinizing de- 
mand, which the act called for, into their agri- 
cultural products, and the results of their indus- 
try. Pride also had some weight in the matter. 
"We have but little," said one of the chiefs, in 
a speech in council, " to exhibit. Those who 
have yielded their assent, have their barns well 
stored, and need not blush when you call." 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 7 

Another topic mixed itself with the consider- 
ation of the census, and made some of the chiefs 
distrustful of it. I allude to the long disturbed 
state of their land question, and the treaty of 
compromise which has recently been made with 
the Ogden Company, by which the reversionary 
right to the fee simple of two of their reserva- 
tions has been modified. In this compromise, 
the Tonewandas, a considerable sub-tribe or de- 
partmental band of Senecas, did not unite ; yet 
the reservation which they occupy is one of the 
tracts to be given up. They opposed the cen- 
sus, from the mere fear of committing them- 
selves on this prior question, in some way, not 
very well understood by them, and certainly not 
well made out by their speakers. It is known 
that for many years, the general question of ce- 
ding their reservations, under the provisions of 
an early treaty of the state with the Six Na- 
tions, had divided the Senecas into two parties. 
A discussion, which has extended through near- 
ly half a century, in which Red Jacket had ex- 
hibited all his eloquence, had sharpened the na- 
tional acumen in negotiation, and produced a 
peculiar sensitiveness and suspicion of motive, 
whenever, in latter times, the slightest question 
of interest or policy has been introduced into 
their councils. This spirit evinced itself in the 
very outset of my visit, on announcing to cer- 
tain bands the requirements.of the census act. 
Some of them were, moreover, strongly disposed 
to view it as the preliminary step, on the part 



8 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of the legislature, to taxation. To be taxed, is 
an idea which the Iroquois regard with horror. 
They had themselves, in ancient days, put na- 
tions under tribute, and understood very well 
the import of a state tax upon their property. 

"Why," said the Tonewanda chief, Deone- 
hogawa, (called John Blacksmith,) " why is this 
census asked for, at this time, when we are in a 
straitened position Avith respect to our reserva- 
vation ? Or if it is important to you or us, why 
was it not called for before ? If you do not wish 
to obtain facts about our lands and cattle, to tax 
us, what is the object of the census? What is 
to be done with the information after you take 
it to Governor Wright, at Skenectati I'"^ 

Hoeyanehqui, or Sky-carrier, a Buffalo chief, 
in answer to a question as to their views of the 
abstract right of the state to tax the tribes, 
evaded a direct issue, but assuming the ground 
of policy, compared the Iroquois to a sick man, 
and said, "that he did not believe the state 
would oppress one thus weak." 

Kaweaka, a Tuscarora chief of intelligence, 
speaking the English language very well, in 
which he is called William Mount Pleasant, 

* The aborifrines are very tenacious of their geographical 
names. This ancient name of the seat of government 1 found 
to be used, on every occasion, among the Senecas, when it 
was necessary to allude to Albany. Its transference on the 
conquest of the provinte, in 1664, to the banks of the Mo- 
hawk, in lieu of the aboriginal name of Onigaranmntel, 
never received, at least, their sanction. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 9 

gave a proof, in yielding to the measure promptly, 
that he had not failed to profit by the use of let- 
ters. " AVe know our own rights. Should the 
legislature attempt to tax us, our protection is in 
the Constitution of the United States, which for- 
bids it." This is the first appeal, it is thought, 
ever made by an Iroquois to this instrument. 
The clause referred to, relates hoAvever, wholly 
to representation in congress, [Vide Art. 1, Sec. 
II, 2d.] from the privileges of which it excludes 
"Indians not taxed," clearly implying that such 
persons might be represented in that body if 
taxed. Civilization and taxation appear to be 
inseparable. 

Having detailed the steps taken in procur- 
ing the census, it only remains to subjoin a few 
remarks, which I beg leave to add, on the gene- 
ral features of the statistics and the results of 
their agriculture upon their condition and pros- 
pects. 

The printed queries being prepared exclusively 
for a population in a high state of prosperity and 
progress, embrace many items for which there 
was no occasion, among pseudo hunters, herds- 
men, or incipient agriculturists. Neither privi- 
leged to vote, nor subject to taxation, nor milita- 
ry service, or covered by the common school 
system, or bearing any of the characteristic tests 
of citizenship, the questions designed to bring 
out this class of facts remained mere blanks. 
Others required to institute comparisons between 
a civilized and quasi savage state, were left by 



10 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the tenor of the instructions, to my own discre- 
tion. I should have been, I am free to confess, 
happy to have extended these comparative views 
much more fully than I have, going further into 
their vital statistics, their succedaneous modes 
of employment and subsistence, some parts of 
their lexicography, besides that affecting the 
names of places, and a few kindred topics, had 
not the legislature omitted to make provision 
for the expenses incidental to such extended 
labors, and the department to which I applied 
giving me little encouragement that the over- 
sight would be remedied. I have, however, 
proceeded to render the comparative tables effect- 
ual, and, I trust, satisfactory. 

It cannot be said that the Iroquois cantons of 
New York have as yet any productive commerce, 
arts and manufactures. They are, to soine ex- 
tent, producers; furnish a few mechanics, and 
give employment to, and own a few lumber 
mills ; but it is believed, while some of the bands, 
and at least one of the entire cantons, namely, 
the Tuscaroras, raise more grain and stock, than 
is sufficient for their own full subsistence, the 
average of the agricultural products of the whole 
people is not more, at the most favorable view, 
than is necessary for their annual subsistence. 
If so, they add nothing to the productive industry 
of the state. But it is gratifying to know that 
they are at least able to live upon their own 
means; and their condition and improvement 
is (certainly within the era of the temperance 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 11 

movement among them,) decidedly progressive 
and encouraging. They have reached the point 
in industrial progress, where it is only necessary 
to go forward. Numbers of families are emi- 
nently entitled to the epithet of good practical 
farmers, and are living, year in and year out, in 
the midst of agricultural affluence. That the 
proportion of individuals, thus advanced, is as 
considerable as the census columns denote it to 
be, is among the favorable features of the in- 
quiry. There would appear to be no inaptitude 
for mechanical ingenuity, but hitherto, the pro- 
portion of their actual number who have em- 
braced the arts, is, comparatively, very limited, 
not exceeding, at most, two or three to a tribe, 
and the effort has hitherto been confined to sil- 
versmiths,* blacksmiths, carpenters and coopers. 
A single instance of a wdieelwright and fancy 
wagon maker occurs. 

Viewed in its extremes, society, in the Iro- 
quois cantons, still exhibits no unequivocal ves- 
tiges of the tie which bound them to the hunter 
state; and even, among the more advanced 
classes, there is too much depend ance on means 
of living which mark either the absolute barbaric 
state, or the first grade of civilization. Hunters 
they are, indeed, no longer; yet it was desirable 

* The Iroquois, in adopting our costume, have transferred 
their ancient love of silver amulets, frontlets, and other bar- 
baric ornaments, to their guns and tomahawks, which are fre- 
quently richly inlaid with the shining metal, worked with 
great skill into the richest devices. They also fashion beauti- 
ful ear rings of silver for their women. 



12 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

to ascertain how much of their present means 
of subsistence was derived from the chase. This 
will be found to be denoted in appropriate co- 
lumns. It is gratifying to observe, that the 
amount is so small, nor is it less so, to the cause 
of Indian civilization, to remark, that the uncer- 
tain and scanty reward of time and labor which 
the chase affords, is less and less relied on, in the 
precise ratio that the bands and neighborhoods 
advance in agriculture and the arts. In cases 
where the cultivation of English grains and the 
raising of stock have thoroughly enlisted atten- 
tion, the chase has long ceased to attract its an- 
cient votaries, and in these instances, which 
embrace some entire bands, or chieftaincies, it has 
become precisely what it is, in civilized commu- 
nities, where game yet exists, an amusement, and 
not a means of reward. 

That delusive means of Indian subsistence, 
which is based on the receipt of money annui- 
ties from the government, still calls together an- 
nually, and sometimes oftener, the collective 
male population of these tribes, at an expense 
of time, and means, which is wholly dispropor- 
tioned, both to amount actually received, and 
the not unimportant incidental risks, moral 
and physical, incurred by the assemblage. I have 
denoted both the gross sum of these annuities, 
and the distributive share to heads of families, 
obtained from the office of the local government 
agents. These are believed to be authentic in 
amount. Estimated at the highest rate which 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 13 

can be taken, the sum, per capita, of these an- 
nuities, will not, on an average of crops and 
prices, for a series of years, equal the cash value 
of seven bushels of wheat — a product, which, as 
a means of actual subsistence to the Indian fa- 
mily, would be of double or treble value. But 
this is far from being the worst effect of both the 
general and per capita cash distribution. Time 
and health are not only sacrificed to obtain the 
pittance, but he is fortunate who does not ex- 
pend the amount in the outward or return jour- 
ney to, or from the council house, or in the pur- 
chase of some showy but valueless articles, 
while attending there. 

A still further evil, flowing from these annual 
gatherings for the payment of Indian annuities, 
is the stimulus Avhich it produces in assembling 
at such places, traders and speculating dealers 
of various kinds, who are versed in this species 
of traflic, and Avho well know the weak points 
of the native character, and how best to profit 
by them. In effect, few of the annuitants reach 
their homes with a dime. Most of them have 
expended all, and lost their time in addition. 
Health is not unfrequently sacrificed by living 
on articles, or in a manner not customary at 
home. The intemperate are confirmed in in- 
temperance; and the idle, foppish and gay, are 
only more enamored of idleness, foppishness 
and pleasure. That such a system, introduced 
at an early day, Avhen it was policy for govern- 
ments on this continent, foreign and domestic, to 



14 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

throw out a boon before wandering, hostile, and 
savage tribes, to dispky their munificence, and 
effect temporary interests, should have been 
continued to the present day, is only to be ac- 
counted for, from the accumulated duties, per- 
petually advancing jurisdiction, and still imper- 
fectly organized state of that sub-department of 
the government, which exercises its, in some re- 
spects, anomalous administrative functions, un- 
der the name of the Indian bureau. So far as the 
Iroquois are affected by the policy adverted to, 
their interests demand an immediate considera- 
tion of the subject on enlarged principles. It 
behooves them to meditate whether, as a people, 
now semi-civilized, and exercising, in their in- 
ternal polity, the powers of an independent go- 
vernment, some more beneficial appropriation 
of the fund could not be made. Perhaps nothing 
f, would better serve to advance and exalt them, 

'Vn (X Yi ^^ ^ people, •axi^ the application of these annui- 
ties to constitute a confederate school fund, un- 
der some compact or arrangement with the state, 
by which the latter should stipulate to extend 
the frame- work of the common school system 
over their reservations. 

Horticulture, to some extent, and in a limited 
sense, was always an incident to the hunter 
state among these tribes, so far, at least, as we 
are acquainted with their history. They brought 
the zea maize with them, we must concede, on 
their early migration to the banks of the Mo- 
hawk, and the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 15 

Seneca basins ; for this grain is conceded, on all 
hands, to be a tropical, or at least a southern 
plant, and if so, it reveals the general course of 
their migration. It is of indigenous origin, and 
w^as not known in Europe before the discovery. 
We learned the mode of cultivation from them, 
and not they from us. This grain became the 
basis of their fixity of population, in the 14th or 
loth centuries, and capacity to undertake mili- 
tary enterprises. It was certainly cultivated in 
large fields, in their chief locations, and gave 
them a title to agriculturists ; and it is equally 
certain tha,t they had a kind of bean, perhaps 
the same called frijoles by the early Spaniards, 
and some species of ciicurbita. These were cul- 
tivated in gardens. 

The tables will show a general and considera- 
ble advance, or any probable assumed basis of 
the cultivation of corn. We cannot consider 
this species of cultivation alone, however, as any 
characteristic evidence of advance in agricul- 
ture, while the more general introduction of it, 
and the harvesting of large fields of it, by sepa- 
rate families, is undoubtedly to be considered so. 
Taking the item of corn as the test, another and 
an important result will be perceived. In pro- 
portion as the cereals are cultivated, the ave- 
rage quantity of corn is diminished ; and these 
are the very cases where, at the same time, the 
degree of civilization is most apparent in other 
things. 

The condition of herdsmen is deemed by theo- 



16 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

rists and historians to be the first step in the 
progress from the hunter state. But we are in 
want of all evidence to show that there ever 
was, in America, a pastoral state. In the first 
place, the tribes had tamed no quadruped, even 
in the tropics, but the lama. The bison was 
never under any subjection, nor a fleece ever 
gathered, so far as history tells us, from the Big- 
horn or Rocky-mountain sheep. The horse, the 
domestic cow, the hog, and the common sheep, 
were brought over after the discovery; and the 
Iroquois, like most of their western brethren, 
have been very slow, all advantages considered, 
in raising them. They have, in fact, had no pas- 
toral state, and they have only become herds- 
men at the time that they took hold of the 
plough. The number of domestic animals now 
on their reservations, as shown by the tables, 
bears a fall proportion to their other industrial 
field labors. It will be seen, that while horses, 
neat cattle and hogs are generally raised, sheep 
come in, at more mature periods of advance, and 
are found only on the largest and best cultivated 
farms. Sheep, therefore, like the cereals, be- 
come a test of their advance. With this stage, 
we generally find, too, the field esculents, as 
turneps, peas, &c., and also buckwheat. I have 
indicated, as a further proof of their advance as 
herdsmen and graziers, the number of acres of 
meadow cut. The Iroquois cultivate no flax. 
They probably raise no rye, from the fact that 
their lands are better adapted to wheat and corn. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 17 

The potato was certainly indigenous. Sir 
Walter Raleigh, in his eftbrts at colonizations, 
had it brought from Virginia, under the original 
name of openawg* But none of the North 
American tribes are known to have cultivated 
it. They dug it up, like other indigenous edible 
roots from the forest. But it has long been in- 
troduced into their villages and spread over the 
northern latitudes, far beyond the present limit 
of the zea maize. Its cultivation is so easy and 
so similar to that of their favorite corn, and its 
yield so great, that it is remarkable it should not 
have received more general attention from all 
the tribes. With the Iroquois, the lists will de- 
note that, in most cases, it is a mere item of hor- 
ticulture, most families not planting over half 
an acre, often not more than a quarter of an 
acre, and yet more frequently, none at all. 

The apple is the Iroquois banana. From the 
earliest introduction of this fruit into New York 
and New France, from the genial plains of Hol- 
land and Normandy, these tribes appear to have 
been captivated by its taste, and they lost no 
time in transferring it, by sowing the seed, to 
the sites of their ancient castles. No one can 
read the accounts of the destruction of the ex- 
tensive orchards of the apple, which were cut 
down, on Gen. Sullivan's inroad into the Genesee 
country in 1779, without regretting that the pur- 

*By the Algonquins of the present day, this plant is called, 
in the plural, opineeg. The inflection in eeg denotes the 
plural. 



18 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

poses of war should have required this barbaric 
act. The census will show that this taste re- 
mains as strong- now as it was 68 years ago. * 

Adverse to agricultural labor, and always con- 
founding it with slavery, or some form of servi- 
tude, at least, deeming it derogatory, the first 
effort of the Iroquois to advance from their ori- 
ginal corn-field and garden of beans and vines, is 
connected with the letting out of their spare 
lands to white men, who were cast on the fron- 
tiers, to cultivate, receiving for it some low re- 
muneration in kind or otherwise, by way of 
rent. This system, it is true, increased a little 
their means of subsistence, but nourished their 
native pride and indolence. It seems to have 
been particularly a practice of the Iroquois, and 
it has been continued and incorporated into their 
present agricultural system. I have taken pains 
to indicate, in every family, the amount of land 
thus let, and the actual or estimated value re- 
ceived for it. These receipts, I was informed, 
low as they are in amount, are generally paid in 
kind, or in such manner as often to diminish 
their value and effect, in contributing to the pro- 
per sustenance of the family. 

I have been equally careful to ascertain the 
number of families who cultivated no lands, and 
insert them in the tables. The division of real 
property among this people, appears to lall under 
the ordinary rules of acquisition in other socie- 
ties. But it is not to i)e inferred in all cases, 
that t)ie individual returned as without land has 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 19 

absolutely no right to any, or having this right, has 
either forfeited or alienated it, although the laws 
of the tribes respecting property, permit one Iro- 
quois to convey his property in fee to another. It 
is only to be inferred, in every case, that they are 
non-cultivators. In a few cases the persons thus 
marked are mechanics, and rely for support on 
their skill. In the valley of the Allegany, some of 
them are pilots in conducting rafts of lumber or 
arks down that stream. It would have relieved 
the industrial means of this band of the Senecas, 
extended as they are for forty miles along both 
banks of this river, could the amount received for 
this species of pilotage have been ascertained, to- 
gether with the avails derived from several saw- 
mills owned by them, and from the lumber trade 
of that river generally. But these questions 
would have remained a blank in other tribes; 

Not a few persons amongst the Onondagas 
and Tuscaroras, and the Tonewandas and other 
bands of Senecas, living in or contiguous to the 
principal wheat growing counties, labor during 
the harvest season as reapers and cradlers, ibr 
skill and ability in which occupations they bear 
a high reputation, and receive good wages in 
cash. There are a few engaged some parts of 
the year, as mariners on the lakes. It will be 
sufficient to denote these varied forms of inci- 
pient labor and strength of muscle and personal 
energy among these tribes, which it was, how- 
ever, impracticable to bring into the tables. 

Individual character vindicates its claims to 



20 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

wealth and distinction among these tribes in as 
marked a manner as among any people in the 
world. Industry, capacity, and integrity, are 
strongly marked on the character and manners 
of numbers in each of the tribes. The art of 
speaking, and a facility in grasping objects of 
thought, and in the transaction of business, se- 
parate and distinguish persons as fully as physi- 
cal traits do their faces. And it is to be observed 
that these intellectual traits run very much in 
certain families. That there are numbers, on 
the contrary, who are drones in the political hive, 
who do not labor, or labor very little ; others who 
are intemperate ; others who neither work nor 
own land, or would long remain proprietors of 
them, were new divisions and appropriations 
made, and all of whom are a burden and draw- 
back upon the industrious and producing classes, 
it requires little observation to show. Admitting 
what reforms, teaching and example may ac- 
complish among these, it is yet certain that of 
this number there are many who do not assimi- 
late, or appear to constitute material for as- 
similation in tastes and habits, with the mass, 
nor appear likely to incorporate with them in any 
practical shape where they now reside, in their 
advances in agriculture, government and morals. 
The hunter habit in these persons is yet strong, 
but having nothing to stimulate it, they appear 
loth to embrace other modes of subsistence. 
Others stand aloof from labor, or at least all 
active and efficient labor, from a restless desire 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 21 

of change, or ambition to do something else than 
plough and raise stock ; or from ill-luck, penury, 
or other motives. The proportion of the popu- 
lation who thus stand still and do not advance 
in civil polity, are a strong draw-back on the 
rest. It is conceived to be a pertinent question 
whether this class of the population would not 
find a better theatre for their progress and de- 
velopement by migrating to the west, where the 
general government still possess unappropriated 
territory at their disposal. It is believed by 
many that their migration would result in bene- 
fit to both parties.. The question is one which 
has been often discussed by them in council, and 
is not yet, I should judge, fully settled. A point 
of approach for the Iroquois has already been 
formed in the Indian territory by the Senecas 
and Shawnees from Sandusky in Ohio, who, at 
the last accounts (vide President's Message to 
Congress, 1844), number in the aggregate 336 
souls. They are located on the Neosho river (a 
branch of the Arkansas), west of the western 
boundary of the state of Arkansas, where the re- 
ports of the government agents represent them 
as raising horses, cattle and other stock, and be- 
ing producers of grain. In any view, the sub- 
ject of the several classes of persons represented 
in the accompanying tables, as semi-hunters and 
non-cultivators, or individuals without lands, is 
one entitled to attention. They should not be 
permitted to live within the boundaries of the 
state without lands. The state shoul4 cherish 



22 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

all who choose to remain, as vestiges of a once 
powerful race, to whose wisdom and bravery we 
owe the preservation of the domain. It would be 
unjust to expect the industrious and forehanded 
Iroquois to redivide their lands with the poor, and, 
to some extent, thriftless numbers of the cantons ; 
while it may at the same time be observed, that 
it would be very difficult, if not impossible to pro- 
vide, by legislation, suitable guards against their 
deterioration and depopulation in their present 
locations, with out destroying wholly the fabric of 
their confederation, chieftainships and laws. 

Whether the Iroquois have advanced in popu- 
lation since they have laid aside the character 
of warriors and hunters, and adopted agriculture 
as their only means of support, we have no ac- 
curate data for determining. That their ancient 
population was overrated, and very much over- 
rated, at all periods of our history, there can be 
little question. We may dismiss many of these 
rude conjectures of the elder writers, as entitled to 
little notice, particularly that of La Houton, who 
estimates each canton at 14,000 souls. Still,' 
after making every abatement for this tendency 
in the earlier authors to exaggerate their actual 
numbers, it could have been no small popula- 
tion which, at one time, attacked the island of 
Montreal with twelve hundred armed warriors, 
and at another (1683), marched a thousand men 
against the Ottagamies.* 

Smith puts the whole number of fighting men 

* Colden's Five Nations. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS, 23 

in 1756, with a moderation which is remarkable, 
compared to others who had touched the subject, 
at about twelve hundred. Giving to each war- 
rior a home population of five, which is found to 
hold good, in modern days, in the great area of 
the west, we should have an aggregate of 6,000, 
a result which is, probably, too low. Douglass, 
four years afterwards, gives us data for raising 
this estimate to 7,500. Col. Boquet, still four 
years later, raises this latter estimate by 250. It 
must be evident that their perpetual wars had a 
tendency to keep down their numbers, notwith- 
standing their policy of aiding their natural in- 
crease by the adoption and incorporation into 
the cantons, in full independence, of prisoners 
and captives. 

Mr. Jefferson estimates the population of the 
Powhatanic confederacy or group of tribes, at 
one individual to the square mile.^ Gov. Clin- 
ton, who ably handled the subject in a discourse 
in 1811, estimates that, if this rule be applied to 
the domain of the Iroquois in New York, an ag- 
gregate of not less than 30,000 would be pro- 
duced;! but he does not pass his opinon upon 
the estimate. 

At a conference with the five cantons at Al- 
bany, in 1677, the number of warriors was care- 
fully made out at 2, 150, giving, on the preceding- 
mode of computation, a population of 10,750, and 
this was the strength of the confederacy report- 
ed by an agent of the governor of Virginia, who 

* Notes on Virginia, t Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc, vol. 2. 



24 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

• 

had been specially despatched to the conference 
for the purpose of obtaining this fact. Either, 
then, in subsequent estimates of 1756, '60, and 
'64, the population had been underrated, or 
there had, on the assumption of the truth of the 
above enumeration, which is moderate, been a 
decline in the poulation of 3,000 souls in a pe- 
riod of eighty-seven years. That there was a 
constant tendency to decline, and that the can- 
tons were aware of this, and made efforts to 
keep it up, by the policy of their conquests, is 
apparent, and has before been indicated. 

During the American revolution, which broke 
out but eleven years after the expedition and 
estimate of Boquet, when he had put the Iro- 
quois at 1,550 fighting men, it is estimated that 
the British government had in their interest and 
service 1,580 warriors of this confederacy. The 
highest number noticed of the friendly Oneidas 
and a few others, who sided with us in that con- 
test, is 230 warriors, raising the number of armed 
men engaged in the war, to 1,810, and the gross 
population in 1776 to 9,050 souls. This estimate, 
which appears to have been carefully made, from 
authentic documents, is the utmost that could 
well be claimed. It was made at the era when 
danger prompted the pen of either party in the 
war to exhibit the military strength of this con- 
federacy, in its utmost power ; and we may rest 
here, as a safe point of comparison, or, at least, 
we cannot admit a higher population. 

By tlie census returns herewith submitted, the 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 25 

aggregate population of the three full, and four 
fragmentary cantons, namely, the Oneidas and 
Cayugas, &c., still residing within the state, are 
denoted to be as follows, namely: 

Senecas, 2,441 

Onondagas, 398 

Tuscaroras, 281 

Oneidas, 210 

Cayugas, 123 

Mohawks, 20 

St. Regis Canton, (exclusive of the num- 
ber over the Canadian boundary),. . . . 260 

By a statement submitted to Congress, on the 
3d of December, 1844,* the number of Oneidas 
settled in Wisconsin, is put at 722 ; the number 
of Senecas, who have removed* from Ohio into 
the Indian territory west of the Mississippi, at 
125, and the number of mixed Senecas and 
Shawnees, at the same general location, at 211. 
Deducting one-half of the latter, for Shawndes, 
and there is to be added to the preceding census, 
in order to show the natural increase of the Iro- 
quois, 953 souls. The number of the St. Regis 
tribe, who are based, as a tribe, on the Praying 
Indians of Golden, a band of Catholic Mohawks 
originally located at Caughnawaga, is shewn by 
the census of 1845 to be 260. There are, at 
the village of Cornplanter, within the bounds 
of Pennsylvania, as numbered by me, in that 
year, 51 Senecas. Supposing that the Mo- 
hawks and Cayugas who fled to Canada at and 
after the revolutionary war, and who are now 

* Vide Doc. No. 2, Ho. of Reps., 28th Cong., 2d Session. 
5 



26 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

settled at Brantford on the Grand river, Canada 
West, have merely held their own, in point of 
numbers, and deducting- the number of Cayu- 
gas, namely, 144, found among the Senecas of 
Cattaraugus, and herewith separately returned, 
and taking Dalton's estimate of the Mohawks 
and Cayugas in 1776, namely, 300 warriors for 
each tribe, there is to be added, to the census, to 
accomplish the same comparative view, 2,850 
souls. From this estimate, there must be deduct- 
ed for a manifest error, in the original estimates 
of Dalton, in putting the Cayugas on the same 
footing of strength with the Mohawks, not less 
than 150 warriors or 750 souls, leaving the Ca- 
nadian Iroquois at 2,106 — say 2,000 souls. 

Adding these items to the returns of the pre- 
sent census, and the rather extraordinary result 
will appear, that there is now existing in the 
United States and Canada, a population of 6,942 
Iroquois, that is to say, but 2,108 less than the 
estimated number, and that number placed as 
high as it well could be, at the era of the revo- 
lution in 1776. Of this number, 4,836 inhabit 
the United States, and 3,843 the state of New 
York. I cannot, however, submit this result 
without expressing the opinion, that the Iroquois 
population has been lower, between tlie era of 
the revolutionary war and the present time, than 
the census now denotes; and tliat for some 
years past, and since they have been well lodged 
and clothed, and subsisted by their own labor, 
and been exempted from the diseases and casu- 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 27 

alties incident to savage life, and the empire of 
the forest, their population has recovered and is 

NOW ON THE INCREASE. 

I have thus brought to a close, so far as re- 
lates to their population and industrial efforts, 
the inquiry committed to me respecting this na- 
tion. It would perhaps have gratified statistical 
curiosity" and philosophical theory, to have ex- 
hibited fuller data on the subject of their lon- 
gevity and vital statistics generally, but it may 
be considered in the light of an achievement to 
have accomplished thus much. The general 
result indicates five, with a large fraction, as the 
average number of the Iroquois fami ly. Through- 
out each canton, the number of females pre- 
dominates over the males. This is a fact which 
has been long known to hold good with respect 
to wandering, predatory and warlike tribes, but 
was not anticipated among peaceful, agricultu- 
ral communities. But few years, however, have 
supervened since they dropped the hatchet and 
took hold of the plough ; and in this time, it is 
apparent that the proportion of males to fe- 
males has approached nearer to an equilibrium. 
The effects on vitality of agricultural labor and 
a cessation from war, are likewise favorable, so 
far as we can judge, compared with the known 
results among the sparse, ill-fed, warring and 
erratic hunters of the western forests and 
prairies. The average number of the Iroquois 
family is not higher than the common average 
of the hunter state. The number of children 



28 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

borne by each female is a considerable fraction 
over four. Of a population of 312 Tuscaroras, 
five have reached to and passed the age of 80, 
or over If per cent. Among the Senecas and 
Ca3aTgas of Cattaraugus, the per centage is H, 
with a smaller fraction, 12 persons in 808 having 
passed that limit. Local causes haA^^e diminish- 
ed this to 1 per cent nearly on the Buftalo reser- 
vation. On the contrary, it is found to be in- 
creased in the valley of the Allegany to full 2 per 
cent. The ruling chief of that tribe, Ten-won- 
ny-ahs, of Teongono, commonly called Blacksnake, 
is now in his ninety-sixth year, and is active 
and hale, and capable of performing journeys to 
the annual assemblies of his people at Buffalo. 

Inquiries respecting the number of deaf and 
dumb, idiots, and lunatics, and blind, have not 
escaped my attention. 

I could not learn that there ever was a child 
born blind among the Iroquois. The traditions 
of the people do not refer to any instance of the 
kind. They believe none has occurred. It is 
certain, from inquiries made on the several re- 
servations, that no such person now exists. Yet 
it is a subject which, from the importance of 
the fact in aboriginal statistics, deserves to be 
further investigated. 

Among the Oneidas, prior to the removal of 
the principal body of this tribe to Wisconsin, 
there was one lunatic — a young man, who was 
kindly taken care of, and who accompanied them 
on their removal to the west. There is also an 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 29 

instance of a deaf and dumb child, among those 
of the tribe who remain in the state. This per- 
son, who is a female, now under 12 years of age, 
was recently taken to the Onondaga reservation 
by her relatives, and is now at that location. 

There is one idiot among the Onondagas, a 
young man under 21 years of age. He is sup- 
ported by his relatives and friends. 

I also found one idiot among the Tuscaroras. 

My inquiries on the several reservations of the 
Senecas, at Tonawanda, Buffalo, Cattaraugus 
and Alleghany, did not result in detecting a 
single person who was either deaf and dumb, an 
idiot, or a lunatic. As the Senecas are seven- 
fold more numerous than the highest in number 
among the other cantons, this result, if it should 
be verified by subsequent and fuller inquiries, 
after more thoroughly explaining the object of 
the information sought for to each band, would 
offer a remarkable exemption from the usual 
laws of population. There are no means of in- 
struction for this class of persons on the reserva- 
tions. The care of the three individuals above 
designated, calls for the same disproportionate 
tax on time, which is elsewhere necessary, and 
the admission of these persons to the State Lu- 
natic Asylum, and the Deaf and Dumb Institute 
at New York, free of expense, would seem to be 
due to them. 

Among the St. Regis, which is the only tribe 
I did not visit and take the enumeration of, it is 
not known whether there be any persons of 
either class. 



30 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

One or two additional facts may be added to 
the preceding statistics in this connection. 

I found three saw mills, with twenty-one 
gangs of saws, on the Alleghany reservation, and 
also two council houses and two public schools, 
constituting public property, belonging exclu- 
sively to this reservation, which were valued 
by the appraisers, under the treaty of 1842, at 
$8,219. 

On the Cattaraugus reservation, there is the 
church, council house, and farms, connected 
with the schools, being the property of the In- 
dians, and not the missionary society, which 
were valued together, by the same appraisers, 
at $3,214.50. 

There is on the Buffalo Creek reservation, a 
saw mill, valued at $404.75, a church built ori- 
ginally at an expense of $1,700, valued at $1,- 
200, and a council house, valued at $75 ; making 
a total amount of public property, including all 
the preceding, of $13,113.25. 

The total amount of private valuations on the 
Bufialo and Tonawanda reservations, under the 
treaty of 1842, was not exactly ascertained, but 
it is about $80,000. This is entirely Seneca 
property and funds. Its payment to individuals, 
in the sums awarded, is based on their removal 
to Cattaraugus and Alleghany, agreeably to the 
terms of the compromise treaty of 1842. 

The Onondagas possess one saw mill, well 
built, and in good repair, which is of some value 
to them, and might be rendered more so, under 
a proper system of management. 



VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 31 

It may be well here to notice the fact, that 
there are yet reniainmg in the state, some ves- 
tiges of the Algonquin race, who, under various 
distinctive names, occupied the southern por- 
tion of the state at the era of its discovery and 
colonization. As the language of the census 
act referred to such Indians only as lived on the 
reservations, I did not feel it to be within the 
scope of my appointment to search out and visit 
these scattered individuals, although I should 
have been gratified to make this inquiry. It is 
believed that they are comprised by about twenty 
of the Shinecock tribe, who yet haunt the in- 
Mts and more desolate portions of Long Island, 
and by a very few lingering members of the 
ancient Mohegans, who, under the sobriquet of 
Stockbridges, yet remain in Oneida county. 
The bulk of this people, so long the object of 
missionary care, migrated to the banks of Fox 
river and Winnebago lake, in Wisconsin, about 
1822. They were followed to that portion of 
the west, about the same time, or soon after, 
by the small consolidated band of Nanticokes, 
Narragansetts, and other early coast tribes, who, 
in concentrating in the Oriskany valley, after 
the close of the revolutionary war, dropped their 
respective languages, learned English, and as- 
sumed the name of Brothertons. Both these 
migrated tribes were in an advanced state of 
semi-civilization, and were good farmers and 
herdsmen at the era of their removal. 



32 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 





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VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



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34 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



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VITAL AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



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36 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 









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38 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



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CHAPTER II. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 



Sketch of the Iroquois Group of Abortginal Tribes — 
Ethnological Suggestions — Indian Cosmogony — Gleams 
OF THEIR Ancient General History. 

The statistical data which have been brought 
forward, respecting the Iroquois cantons, and 
their Umits, may be taken as the basis of some 
considerations on the ancient history and anti- 
quities, and the general ethnology of this part 
of North America. Much interest has been ex- 
cited from time to time, and as the area of set- 
tlement and cultivation has been extended on 
the subject of the topics, reaching as the inquiry 
does, from the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes, 
with extensions, at some points, laterally, through 
and east of the AUeghanies. By far the most 
striking and important of these vestiges of ancient 
power, and partial civilization, east of that pri- 
mary range, mark their northern terminus, in 
the fertile area of western New York — charac- 
terized as this area is, by its numerous streams 
and interior lakes, and presenting a superficies 
abounding in all the elements of ancient sub- 



40 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

sistence. In its forest state, it was known to 
abound in game and fish, which yielded the 
hunter a ready reward for the labors of his bow 
and spear. Its rich valleys were favorable to the 
zea maize. Geographically, it possessed some 
very strong points to favor the prosperity of its 
ancient possessors, connected as it was, by water, 
with the Ohio valley, the upper lakes, and the 
Atlantic ocean ; and the entire superfices appears 
to have been contended for, at several periods, 
by different tribes or confederacies, long anterior 
^/j^ to the remotest ^fid of the discovery of the con- 
tinent. 

From an early period in our history, a deep 
interest has been felt in the discovery of the 
ancient works and relics of art which character- 
|, ize this area. It is evident from an examination 

i of these curious remains, that they mark the for- 

I mer residence or occupancy of different races, at 

I eras separate from each other; that there are, 

I figuratively speaking, amidst the ruins of a darker 

I age, traces of the footsteps of an European or 

i| advanced population, at least in small numbers, 

|| before the Columbian period; that there suc- 

Sceeded to this a species of psuedo-civilization, 
in a family of the nomadic or hunter races, who 
!] overcame the prior race, and whose descendants 

iyet exist ; that there was a subsequent decline in 
incipient power, and in the arts of defence, lead- 
ing to a deeper state of barbarism, which marked 
the race on their discovery; and that evidences 
of each of these eras and races are to be found 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 41 

in the remains of art and skill in the ancient 
sites above mentioned. 

The larger number of the class of antique, 
circular and elliptical works, scattered over the 
western and south-western part of the state, of 
an age anterior to the discovery, lie chiefly west 
of Cayuga, and upon the sources of the Susque- 
hanna. Interspersed amid this system of com- 
mon ring forts of the west, there are some of a 
still earlier period, which exhibit squares and 
parallelograms, yet without any defensive work 
in the nature of bastions. 

The area of early French occupancy, or at- 
tempt at colonization, within the state, extends 
east and west between the waters of the Cayuga 
and Oneida lakes, as general boundaries, having 
the county of Onondaga as its chief and central 
point. This area comprehends the most striking 
part of the numerous remains of implements of 
art, and other antiquities of confessedly Euro- 
pean origin, which have heretofore excited at- 
tention. How far these evidences extend north 
is not known. But any examination of either 
the aboriginal or foreign remains would be in- 
complete which did not extend also along the 
line of the St. Lawrence and the waters of Lake 
Champlain. 

The valley of the Hudson, and southern part 
of the state generally, although it has been but 
little explored with this view, is known to have 
some antiquarian features worthy of examination. 
And were there none others but the artificial 
7 



42 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

shell mounds and beds on the sea coast and the 
fossil hones of tlie valley, so remarkable in them- 
selves, these would alone be entitled to the high- 
est interest in studying the ancient history of the 
races of man in this area. 

Geological action subsequent to the period of 
the habitation of the globe, has not been exa- 
mined with this view, but is believed to be impor- 
tant in denoting eras of former occupancy ; it is 
known that various parts of the state have yield- 
ed, at considerable depths below the surface, 
many curious evidences of artificial remains, 
along with relics of the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms. 

There is an apparent extension of the system 
of works which characterize the fort and mound 
period of the Ohio valley, reaching from the Al- 
leghany waters in Chautauque and Cattaraugus, 
along the southern shore of Lake Erie, indefi- 
nitely eastward. 

To examine, describe and compare these evi- 
dences, is aA object of deep historical interest. 
Whether the eras denoted, or the theories here- 
tofore advanced from any quarter, be true or 
false, is a question of little moment as to the im- 
portance of the inquiry itself History seeks to 
clear up the obscurities of time, and to enlarge 
the boundaries of certain knowledge. To do 
this, in relation to the long and obscure periods 
which precede the year 1492, it calls in the aid 
of antiquities, of ethnography, of the study of 
relics of early sculpture in stone or shells, and 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 43 

whatever other evidences exist of the former 
power possessed by these ancient races, to make 
either of the great departments of nature sub- 
servient to man. 

The examinations already made, denote the 
field of inquiry to be one of more than the an- 
ticipated interest. Ancient works and remains 
cover at detached points, the larger part of west- 
tern New York. They are also known to mark 
the valleys of the Susquehanna and Delaware, 
within our boundaries. They are of a different 
nature, and denote less energy and military skill 
in the sea-coast tribes, who subsisted chiefly on 
fish. Yet even here, the shell mounds and piles 
above referred to, denoting village sites, the re- 
mains of art in the fabrication of arms and uten- 
sils of stone and earthernware, and the geologi- 
cal mutations of the surface, and the discovery 
of the fossil bones of large quadrupeds, so re- 
markable in the valley of the Hudson, afford 
helps to chronology, and are worthy of being 
noted. 

There is some evidence in the partial exami- 
nations made in the area giving rise to the Al- 
legany and Genesee rivers, that the mound pe- 
riod of the Ohio valley extended, in its effects, 
upon the tribes which occupied those portions 
of the state. The barrows and places of ordina- 
ry sepulture, have yielded many ancient relics, 
identical in their character with those of the 
Ohio, the Sciota, and the Wabash. It is not pro- 
bable the vast, and in part mountainous ancient 



44 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

hunting grounds of the northern portions of the 
state, were occupied to any extent with populous 
towns or forts. Yet even these regions of coun- 
try are deserving of examination. It is con- 
fessedly, however, in respect to the fertile dis- 
tricts of Central and Western New York, the 
ancient resident domain of the Iroquois, and of 
which most is known, that we are still most in 
need of further examinations, and of exactitude 
and completeness in the inquiry. 

Under all the circumstances, it is hoped that 
these references to the field of antiquities before 
us, while they denote its extent and probable 
connection with the discoveries in the Missis- 
sippi valley, may serve both to point out and 
justify the motive of the writer in the following 
observations : 

On the discovery of North America, the Iro- 
quois tribes were found seated chiefly in the 
wide and fertile territory of western and northern 
New York, reaching west to the sources of the 
Ohio ;^ north, to the banks of Lake Champlain 
and the St. Lawrence ; and east, to the site of 
Albany. They had as much nationality of cha- 
racter, then, as any of the populous tribes, who, 
in the 4tli century wandered over central and 
western Europe. They were, in a high degree, 
warlike, handling the bow and arrow with the 

* They always denominated the Alleghany river by the 
name of Ohio. This I found to be the term constantly used 
for that river in 1845. They give the vowel i, in this word, 
the sound of i in machine. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 45 

skill and dexterity of the ancient Thracians and 
Parthians. They were confederated in peace 
and war, and had begun to lay the foundations 
of a power, against which, the surrounding na- 
tions in the Mississippi valley, and along the St. 
Lawrence, the Hudson, and the Delaware, could 
not stand. The French, when they effectually 
entered the St. Lawrence in 1608,^ courted. their 
alliance on the north, and the Dutch did the 
same in 1609, on the Hudson. Virginia had 
been apprised of their power at an early day, 
and the other English colonies, as they arrived, 
were soon made acquainted with the existence 
of this native confederacy in the north. By 
putting fire-arms into their hands, they doubled 
the aboriginal power, and became themselves, 
for more than a century, dependent on their ca- 
price or friendship. 

The word Iroquois, as we are told by Charle- 
voix, who is a competent and reliable witness 
on this point, is founded on an exclamation, or 
response, made by the sachems and warriors, on 
the delivery to them of an address. This re- 
sponse, as heard among the Senecas, it appeared 
to me, might be written eoh; perhaps the Mo- 
hawks, and other harsher dialects of this family, 
threw in an r between the vowels. It is recorded 
in the term Iroquois, on French principles of 
annotation, with the substantive inflection in 
ois, which is characteristic of French lexicogra- 
phy. It is a term which has been long and ex- 

* They actually discovered this river in 1535. 



46 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

tensively used, both for the language and the 
histoiy of this people ; and is preferable, on en- 
larged considerations, to any other. The term 
Five Nations, used by Golden, and in popular 
iTse during the earlier period of the colony, ceased 
to be appropriate after the Tuscarora revolt in 
North Carolina, and the reunion of this tribe 
v^^ith the parent stock, subsequent to 1712. From 
that period they were called the Six Nations,^ 
and continued to acquire increased reputation 
as a confederacy, under this name, until the ter- 
mination of the American Revolution in 1783, 
and the flight of the Mohawks and Cayugas to 
Canada, when this partial separation and break- 
ing up of the confederacy, rendered it no longer 
applicable. 

The term New York Indians, applied to them 
in modern days, by the eminence in their posi- 
tion, is liable to be confounded by the common 
reader, with the names of several tribes of the 
generic Algonquin family, who formerly occupied 
the southern part of the state, down to the At- 
lantic. Some of these tribes lived in the west, 
and owned and occupied lands, among the Iro- 
quois, until within a few years. And, at any 
rate, it is too vague and imprecise a term to be 
employed in philology or history. 

By the people themselves, -however, neither 
the first nor the last of the foregoing terms ap- 
pear ever to have been adopted, nor are they 

*Iu 1723 they adopted the Necariages, as a seventh nation, 
as will be noticed under the appropriate head. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 47 

now used. They have no word to signify New 
York, in a sense more specific, than as the ter- 
ritory possessed by themselves ^ — a claim which 
they were certainly justified in making, at the 
era of the discovery, when they are admitted, 
on all hands, to have carried their conquests to 
the sea. 

The term Ongwe Honwe, or a people surpassing 
all others, which Golden was informed they ap- 
plied proudly to themselves, may be strictly true, 
if limited, as they did, to mean a people surpass- 
ing all other red men. This they believed, and 
this was the sense in which they boastfully ap- 
plied it. But it was a term older than the dis- 
covery, and had no reference to European races. 
The word honwe, as will appear by the vocabu- 
lary hereto appended, means man. By the 
prefixed term ongwe, it is qualified according to 
various interpretations, to mean real, as contra- 
distinguished from sham men, or cowards; it 
may also mean strong, wise or expert men, and, 
by ellipsis, men excelling others in manliness. 
But it was in no other sense distinctive of them. 
It was the common term for the red race of this 
continent, which they would appear, by the 
phrase, to acknowledge as a unity, and is, the 
word as I found it, used at this day, as the equi- 
valent for our term Indian. 

Each tribe had, at some period of their pro- 
gress, a distinctive appellation, as Onondaga, 
Oneida, k,Q,., of which some traditionary matter 
will be stated, further on. When they came to 



48 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

confederate, and form a general council, they 
took the name of Konoshioni, (ox as the French ^ , 
authors write it, Acquinoshioni,) meaning i4tei?ft*y,'/ 1'^<^^/~^ 
People of the Long House, and figuratively a United ^ 

People, a term by which they still denominate 
themselves, when speaking in a national sense. 
This distinction it is well to bear in mind, and 
not confound. This Long House, to employ 
their own figure, extended east and west from 
the present site of Albany to the foot of the great 
lakes, a distance, by modern admeasurement, of 
325 miles, which is now traversed by rail road. 
An air palace, we may grant them, having beams 
and rafters, higher and longer than any pile of 
regal magnificence yet reared by human hands. 
Thus much may be said, with certainty, of 
the name of this celebrated family of red men, 
by which they are identified and distinguished 
from other stocks of the hunter tribes of North 
America. Where they originated, relatively to 
their position on this continent, the progress of 
ethnology does not, at this incipient period of 
that science, enable us to determine, nor is it 
proposed, save with the merest brevity, now to 
inquire. Veiling their own origin, if anciently 
known, in allegory, or designing by fancy to 
supply the utter want of early history, to the in- 
tent, perhaps, that they might put forth an un- 
disputed title to the country they occupied, the 
relations of their old sages affirm that they ori- 
ginated in the territorial area of western New 
York. Their traditions on this point,, as put on 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 49 

record by the pen of one of their own people, 
(Cusick's historical and traditionary tract), fixes 
the locality of their actual origin at an eminence 
near the falls of the Oswego river. To cut short 
the narration, they assert that their ancestors were 
called forth, from the bowels of a mountain, by 
Tarenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens. It 
represents them as one people, who moved first to- 
wards the east, as far as the sea, and then fell 
back, partly on their own tracks, towards the west 
and south-west. So far, and so far only, the 
tale appears credible enough, and as there is no 
chronology established by it, although dates are 
freely introduced, and consequently nothing to 
contradict it, their track of migration and coun- 
termigration from the Oswego, may be deemed 
as probable. 

The diversities of language, and the separation 
into tribes, are represented to have taken place, 
according to known principles of ethnological 
inference. 

Ondiyaka, an Onondaga sage, and the ruling 
chief of the confederacy, who died on an oflGicial 
visit to the Oneidas in 1839, at the age of ninety, 
confirmed these general traditions of the Tusca- 
rora scribe. He informed Le Fort, who was 
with him in that journey, and at his death, that 
the Onondagas were created by Neo*- in the 

* The term Neo, God, is generally used reverently, with 
a syllable prefixed in the different Iroquois dialects, as Yawa- 
Neo in the Tuscarora, Howai-Neo in the Seneca, Hawai-Neo, 
Onondaga, Lavvai-Neo, Mohawk, &c. 



50 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

country Avhere they lived ; that he made this 
island or continent, Hawoneo, for the red race, 
and meant it for them alone. He did not allude 
to, or acknowledge any migration from other 
lands. This Le Fort, himself an Onondaga, a 
chief, and an educated man, told me during 
the several interviews I had with him at the 
Onondaga castle. 

Ondiyaka proceeded to say, as they walked 
over the ancient ruins in the valley of the Ka- 
sonda,* that this was the spot where the Onon- 
dagas formerly lived, before they fixed them- 
selves in the Onondaga valley, and before they 
had entered into confederation. In those days 
they were at enmity with each other ; they raised 
the old forts to defend themselves. They wan- 
dered about a great deal. They frequently 
changed their places of residence. They lived 
in perpetual fear. They kept fighting, and mov- 
ing their villages often. This reduced their 
numbers, and rendered their condition one of 
alarms and trials. Sometimes they abandoned 
a villagCj and all their gardens and clearings, 
because they had encountered much sickness, 
and believed the place to be doomed. They 
were always ready to hope for better luck in a 
new spot. At length they confederated, and 
then their fortifications were no longer neces- 
sary, and fell into decay. This he believed, was 

* Butternut Creek, which runs throutrh parts of the towns 
of PoiTipcy, Lafayette and De Witt, Onondaga county. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 51 

the origin of these old ruins, which were not of 
foreign construction.* Before the confederacy, 
they had been not only at war among them- 
selves, but had been driven by other enemies.f 
After it, they carried their wars out of their own 
country, and began to bring home prisoners. 
Their plan was to select for adoption from the 
prisoners, and captives, and fragments of tribes 
whom they conquered. These captives were 
equally divided' among each of the tribes, were 
adopted and incorporated with theni, and served 
to make good their losses. They used the term, 
We-hait-wat-sha^ in relation to these captives. 
This term means a body cut into parts and scat- 
tered around. In this manner, they figuratively 
scattered their prisoners, and sunk and destroyed 
their nationality, and built up their own. 

At what period they confederated, we have 
no exact means of deciding. It appears to have 
been comparatively recent, judging from tradi- 
tionary testimony.^ While their advancement 
in the economy of living, in arms, in diplomacy 
and in civil polity, would lead conjecture to a 
more remote date. Their own legends, like 

* This remark must be considered as applied only to the 
class of simple ring forts, so frequent in western New York. 
These forts are proved by antiquarian remains, forest growth, 
&c., to be the most ancient of any works, in Onondaga coun- 
ty, in the shape of forts. 

t Golden represents them as driven by the Algonquins, on 
the discovery of Canada. 

1: Vide Pyrlaus. 



52 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

those of some other leading- stocks of the conti- 
nent, carry them back to a period of wars with 
giants and demons and monsters of the sea, the 
land, and the air, and are fraught with strange 
and grotesque fancies of wizards and enchanters. 
But history, guiding the pen of the French 
Jesuit, describes them as pouring in their canoes 
through the myriad streams, that interlace in 
western New York, and debouching, now on 
the gulf of the St. Lawrence, now on the Chesa- 
peake — glancing again over the waves of Michi- 
gan, and now again plying their paddles in the 
waters of the turbid Mississippi. Wherever 
they went, they carried proofs of their energy, 
courage, and enterprise. 

At one period we hear the sound of their war 
cry along the straits of the St. Mary's, and at 
the foot of Lake Superior. At another under the 
walls of Quebec, where they finally defeated the 
Hurons, under the eyes of the French. They 
put out the fires of the Gahkwas and Eries. 
They eradicated the Susquehannocks. They 
placed the Lenapes, the Nanticokes, and the 
Mu usees under the yoke of subjection. They 
put the Metoacks and the Manhattans under 
tribute. They spread the terror of their arms 
over all New England. They traversed the 
whole length of the Appalachian chain, and de- 
scended, like the enraged yagisho and mega- 
lonyx, on the Cherokees and the Catawbas. 
Smith encountered their warriors in the settle- 
ment of Virginia, and La Salle on the discovery 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 53 

of the Illinois. Nations trembled when they 
heard the'name of the Konoshioni. 

They possessed a physical structure, and they 
lived in a climate which imparted energy to 
their motions. They used a sonorous and com- 
manding language, which had its dual number, 
and its neuter, masculine, and feminine genders. 
They were excellent natural orators, and expert 
diplomatists. They began early to cherish a na- 
tional pride, which grew with their conquests. 
They had, like the Algonquins, in the organiza- 
tion of the several clans, or families, which com- 
posed each tribe, a curious heraldic tie, founded 
on original relationship, which exercised a strong 
influence, but which has never been satisfactorily 
explained. They Avere governed by hereditary 
chieftaincies, like others of the aboriginal stocks, 
but contrary to the usage of these other stocks, 
the claims of their chiefs were subjected to the 
decision of a national council. The aristocratic 
and democratic principles were thus both brought 
into requisition, in candidates for office. But in 
all that constituted national action, they were a 
pure republic. So far was this carried, that it is 
believed the veto of any one chief, to a public 
measure, was sufficient to arrest its adoption by 
the council. 

In the development of their nationality, they 
have produced several men of energy and ability, 
who were equal, in natural force of character, 
to some of the most shining warriors and orators 
of antiquity. Few war captains have exceeded 



54 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Heiidrick, Brant, or Skenandoah. The eloquence 
and force of Garangula, Logan, and Red Jacket, 
in their public speeches, have commanded uni- 
versal admiration. Mr. Jefferson considered the 
appeal of Logan to the white race, after the ex- 
tirpation of his family, as without a parallel ; and 
it has been imitated in vain, by distinguished 
poets and orators. 

Such were the aboriginal people who occupied 
western New York, and their memory will for- 
ever live in the significant names which they 
have bestowed upon the streams and mountains 
which beautify and adorn the land. Viewed as 
one of the Indo-American stocks, they possessed 
some very striking traits. 

Few barbarous nations have ever existed on 
the globe, who have shown more native energy, 
and distinctiveness of character. Still fewer 
who have evinced so firm a devotion to the spirit 
of independence. Yet all their native manliness, 
and energy of character and action, would have 
failed, or become inoperative, had they not aban- 
doned the fatal Indian principle of tribal supre- 
macy, or independent chieftainships, and made 
common cause in a national confederacy. The 
moment this was done, and each of the compo- 
nent clans or tribes had surrendered the power 
of sovereignty to a general council of the whole, 
the foundation for their rise was laid, and they 
soon became the most powerful political body 
among the native tribes of North America, this 
side of the palace of Montezuma. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 55 

In visiting the descendants of such a people, 
after a lapse of more than two centuries and a 
quarter from the discovery, it was the impulse 
of the commonest interest, to make some inqui- 
ries into their former history and antiquities. 
These were pursued under favorable circum- 
stances, for the most part, at all points of my 
journey, and have been resumed, when broken 
off, whenever practical. The onty method pur- 
sued, was to obtain all the facts possible, from 
red or white men, of reliable testimony. Another 
time and place was required to digest them into 
a connected history. They were collected in 
the pauses which intervened, in the obtaining 
of the statistics of the census, and they are con- 
tributed herewith, in the simple garb and fresh- 
ness of the original minutes. Those who related 
the traditions, doubtless supposed themselves to 
be delivering the important lore of their history. 
They were related, along the road, or seated 
around the evening circle, as the current belief 
of the people. Sometimes the fields or hills, dis- 
closing the localities of old forts, were the scene 
of the narrations; sometimes the Indian burial 
ground; sometimes more formal interviews. He 
who gleans popular traditions among this race, 
must have his ear ever open, and his pen or pencil 
ever ready. 

Historical and biographical notices, names of 
places, and sketches of antiquarian remains, 
were thus acquired, as time or occasion prompted. 
To make minutes of what occurred, was all that 



56 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

time permitted me ; but it was a rule, to make 
them promptly, and on the spot. This much 
seemed necessary in despatching this portion of 
my researches, with the miscellaneous details 
accompanying them ; and having accomplished 
this object, my present task is terminated. 

Where we have nothing else to rely upon, we 
may receive the rudest traditions of an Indian 
nation, although they be regarded as mere his- 
torical phenomena, or materials to be considered. 
Whether such materials are to be credited or 
disbelieved, wholly or in part, is quite another 
thing. Our Indians, like some of the ancient 
nations of Asia, whom they resemble in many 
points of character, were prone to refer their 
origin to myths and legends, under which they, 
doubtless, sometimes meant to represent truths ; 
or, at least, to express opinions. The Indian 
tribes, very much like their ancient prototypes 
of the old world, seemed to have felt a necessity 
for inventing some story of their origin, where 
it is sometimes probable there was little or 
nothing of actual tradition to build it upon. 
They were manifestly under a kind of self-re- 
proach, to reflect that they had indeed no his- 
tory; nothing to connect their descent from 
prior races ; and if they have not proved them- 
selves men of much judgment in their attempts 
to supply the deficiency in their fabrications and 
allegories, they must often come in, it must be 
confessed, for no little share of imagination. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 61 

There appears, throughout the whole race, to 
be the vestiges of a tradition of the creation and 
the deluge, two great and striking points in the 
history of man, which, however he wandered, he 
would be most likely to remember. They uni- 
formly attribute their origin to a superior and di- 
vine power. They do not suppose that they came 
into existence without the act of this pre-existing 
almighty power, who is called Neo, or Owaneo. 
This is the third great and leading point in their 
traditions. And these three primary vestiges of 
the original history of the race are to be found 
among the rudest tribes, between the straits of 
Terra del Fuego and the Arctic ocean, notwith- 
standing the amount of grotesque and puerile 
matter which serves as the vehicle of the tradi- 
tions. 

Between the creation and the deluge and the 
present era of the world, there is nearly an en- 
tire blank. Ages have dropped out of their 
memory, with all their stirring incidents of wars 
and migrations, and the first reliable truth we hear 
is, that at such a time they lived on the banks of 
the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Lakes, or the St. 
Lawrence, &c. Nothing but this kind of proximate 
origin could indeed be expected to be retained. 
They acknowledge relationship to no prior race 
of man. We see that they are siii generis with, 
and much resemble, some of the eastern nations 
in color and features. Physiologists have never 
been able to detect a bone or muscle, more or 
less, than the Caucassian race possess. Philo- 
9 



58 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ogists listen to their speech, and admit that in 
one tribe or another they possess all the powers 
of articulate utterance known to that race. A¥e 
know by this kind of evidence, physical and 
moral, that they are a branch of the original 
Adamic stock, without reference to the pages of 
revelation, where we learn the same truth, and 
are told in so many words, that " God out of one 
flesh, formed all men." And we must perforce 
infer, that the Indian race is of foreign origin, and 
must have crossed an ocean to reach the conti- 
nent. Ask not the red sage to tell you how, or 
when, or where. He knows it not, and if he should 
pretend to the knowledge, it Avould be the surest 
possible evidence,'' philosophically considered, 
that his responses were fabulous. Three hun- 
dred and fifty-three years only has America been 
known to Europe, and yet should we strike our 
history out of existence, what should we know 
of the leading facts of the discovery and the dis- 
coverer from Indian tradition ? Still the in- 
quisitive spirit of research leads us to ask, where 
were this race eighteen hundred and forty-five 
years ago? or at the invasion of Britain by 
Julius Caesar? or at the out pouring of the 
Gothic hordes under Alaric or Brennus? Scan- 
dinavian research tells us they were here in the 
10th century. The Mexican picture writings in- 
form us that some of them reached the valley of 
Mexico in the 11th century. Welsh history 
claims to have sent one of her princes among 
them in the 12th century. The mounds of the 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 59 

Mississippi valley do not appear to have had an 
origin much earlier. The whole range of even 
historical conjecture is absolutely limited within 
eight or nine hundred years. Nothing older, of 
their presence certainly in the northern hemi- 
sphere, is known, than about the time of the 
crowning of Charlemagne, A. D. 800, unless we 
take the Grecian tradition of Atalantis. 

In Mexico we can ascend to higher dates. 
But it is altogether doubtful, where the great 
Indian monarchy of Mexico, can be traced 
higher than ninety years before the conquest in 
1521. At that epoch, the princes of Mexico and 
Tezcuco, united and prevailed against the other 
petty monarchies of the Mexican valley. Clavi- 
gero traces the Aztec rule to 1051. Bastamenti 
to 1L16. Sahagan to 1200. The Toltec em- 
pire, which preceded it, is generally supposed to 
have been dismembered in 958. The next year 
they jfled into distant provinces, carrying with 
them their peculiar religion in the worship of 
the sun. This empire is vaguely traced to A. D. 
677. There is a single tradition which reached 
to A. D. 299; and another by which Quetzalcoatl, 
the great personage of their mythology, religion 
and government, is made to correspond, by the 
Indian chronologists, to the advent of Christ. 

That we have nothing in the way of tradition 
older than the dates referred to, is no positive 
proof that the tribes were not upon the conti- 
nent long prior. There are some considerations, 
in the very nature of the case, which argue a re- 



60 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

mote continental antiquity for these tribes. It 
is hardly to be supposed that large numbers of 
the primitive adventurers landed at any one time 
or place ; nor is it more probable that the epochs 
of these early adventurers were very numerous. 
The absolute conformity of physical features 
renders this improbable. The early migrations 
must have been necessarily confined to por- 
tions of the old world peopled by the red race — 
b)^ a race, not only of red skins, black hair and 
eyes, and high cheek bones, who would repro- 
duce these fixed characteristics, ad wfinitum, but 
whose whole mental as well as physiological de- 
velopement assimilates it, as a distinct unity of 
the species. While physiology, however, as- 
serts this unity, in the course of the dispersion 
and multiplication of tribes, their languages, 
granting all that can be asked for on the score 
of original diversity, became divided into an in- 
finite number of dialects and tongues. Between 
these dialects, however, where they are even 
the most diverse, there is a singular coincidence 
in many of the leading principles of concord 
and regimen, and polysynthetic arrangement. 
Such diversities in sound, amounting, as they do 
in many cases, for instance, in the stocks of the 
Algonquin and Iroquois, to an almost total dif- 
ference, must have required many ages for their 
production. And this fact alone afibrds a proof 
of the continental antiquity of the American 
race. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 61 

Iroquois tradition opens with the notion that 
there were originally two worlds, or regions of 
space, namely, an upper and lower world. The 
upper was inhabited by beings similar to the 
human race; the lower by monsters, moving in 
the waters. When the human species were 
transferred below, and the lower sphere was 
about to be rendered fit for their residence, the 
act of their transference or reproduction is con- 
centrated in the idea of a female, who began to 
descend into the lower world, which is depicted 
as a region of darkness, waters and monsters. 
She was received on the back of a tortoise, 
where she gave birth to male twins, and expired. 
The shell of this tortoise expanded into the con- 
tinent, which, in their phraseology, is called an 
island ; and is named by the Onondagas, Aoneo* 
One of the infants was called Inigorio, or the 
Good Mind; the other, hiigohaiea, or the Bad 
Mind. These two antagonistical principles, 
which are such perfect counterparts of the Or- 
muzd and Ahriman of Zoroaster, were at perpetu- 
al variance, it being the law of one to counteract 
whatever the other did. They were not, how- 
ever, men, but gods, or existences, through whom 
the Great Spirit, or Holder of the Heavens, car- 
ried out his purposes. The first labor of Inigorio 

* From this word, the term Aonic, has been employed to 
give a definite sense to discussions which relate to topics 
within the territorial area of the United States, particularly its 
mounds, inscriptions and monuments, and the Indian stocks 
of the northern hemisphere. 



62 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. i 

was to create the sun out of the head of his dead 
mother, and the moon and the stars out of other 
parts of the body. The light these gave, drove 
the monsters into the deep water, to hide them- 
selves. He then prepared the surface of the 
continent, and fitted it for human habitation, by 
diversifying it with creeks, rivers, lakes and 
plains, and by filling these with the various 
species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
He then formed a man and woman out of the 
earth, gave them life, and called them Ea-gwe- 
ho-we, or, as it is more generally known to Indian 
arclia3ologists, Ong-we-Hon-we ; that is to say, a 
real people. 

Meanwhile the Bad Mind created mountains, 
waterfalls, and steeps, and morasses, reptiles, 
serpents, apes, and other objects supposed to be 
injurious to, or in mockery of mankind. He 
made attempts also to conceal the land animals 
in the ground, so as to deprive man of the means 
of subsistence. This continued opposition to 
the wishes of the Good Mind, who was perpetu- 
ally busied in restoring the eflects of the dis- 
placements and wicked devices of the other, at 
length led to a personal combat, of which the 
time and instruments of the battle were agreed 
on. They fought for two days, the one using 
deer's horns, and the other flag roots, as arms.* 

*By reference to the Algonquin story of the combat be- 
tween Manabozho and his father, the West Wind, as given in 
Algic Researches, vol. i., p. 134, it will be seen that the 
weapons chosen by the parties were the same as those em- 
ployed by Inigorio and Inigohatca, namely, deer's horns and 
llaff roots. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 63 

Inigorio, who had chosen horns, finally prevailed ; 
his antagonist sunk doAvn to a region of dark- 
ness, and became the Evil Spirit, or KluneoUix,* 
of the world of despair. Inigorio having ob- 
tained this triumph, retired from the earth. 

This piece of ingenuity, or philosophy of the 
Indian mind, much of which is pure allegory, 
under which truths are hid, stands in the remote 
vista of Iroquois tradition, and it seemed neces- 
sary to notice it, in preparing to take up their 
more sober traditions. It is picked out of a mass 
of incongruous details, published by a native, 
which only serve, peradventure, to denote its 
genuineness ; for divested of absurdity, in the 
original, we should not ascribe much antiquity 
to it, or be prone to attribute it to an ignorant, 
superstitious, pagan people, living in all their 
earlier times without arts, letters or civilization. 
Futile as it is, it will be found veritable philoso- 
phy, compared with most of the earlier theories 
of the renowned nations of antiquity. Take, as 
an instance, the account Sanchoniathus gives of 
the theology of the Phoenicians.f 

The Iroquois believe, with the Algonquins, 
that the earth is a plain with four corners; and 
that the sky, or visible heavens, that is, hemi- 
sphere, resting on this plain, is of a substance 
which can be indented or broke through. They 
believe that the planets shine through this hemi- 

* Oneida. 

tGowan's Ancient Fragments, 2 vol. 8vo., N. Y., 1835. 



64 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

sphere, and that the sun and moon perform their 
orbits daily, around it. 

They observe, it is believed, the autumnal and 
vernal equinoxes, by their effects on meteorolo- 
gical phenomena. They have a lunar year of 
about 365 days, but they make no intercalations 
for the true length of the year, — which never 
was, apparently, known to them, 

When we come to draw the minds of the 
sages and chroniclers of the Iroquois cantons to 
the facts of their early history and origin, they 
treat us with legendary fables, and myths of gods 
and men, and changes and freaks in elementary 
matter, which indicate that such ideas were 
common to their progenitors, whatever part of 
the world they occupied. We have adverted to 
their notions on this head, in the preceding re- 
marks on their cosmogony, tinctured, as it 
strongly is, with the old Persian philosophy. 

They deny, as do all the tribes, a foreign ori- 
gin. They assert that America, or Aoneo, was 
the place of their origin. They begin by laying 
down the theory, that they were the peculiar 
care of the Supernal Power who created all 
things, and who, as a proof of his care and be- 
nevolence of a race whom he had marked by a 
distinct color, created the continent for their 
especial use, and placed them upon it. None of 
the tribes pretend to establish dates, nor have 
they any astronomical data, to fix them. But 
they all give to tfie story of their origin, or crea- 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 65 

tion, a locality, which is generally fixed to some 
prominent geographical feature near to their 
present respective place of abode, or at least a 
spot well known. This spot, among the Iroquois 
cantons, is located in the northern hemisphere. 

The term Ongwe Honwe, is used by these 
tribes, very much in the manner in which the 
ancient Teutons called themselves Allamanna, 
or Ghermann, from which we have the modern 
terms, Allemand and German. If they did not 
literally call themselves all-men, as did these 
proud tribes, they implied as much, in a term 
which is interpreted to mean, real men, or a 
people surpassing all others. It is the common 
term for the red race, as contradistinguished 
from all other races, and the true equivalent of 
the phrase Indian. 

By their earliest traditions, we are told that a 
body of the Ongwe Honwe encamped on the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, where they were in- 
vaded by a nation few in number, but of giant 
stature, called Rononweca."^ After a war, 
brought on by personal encounters and incidents, 
and carried on with perfidy and cruelty, they 
were delivered at length, by the skill and cour- 
age of Yatontea,'^ who, after retreating before 
them, raised a large body of men and defeated 
them, after which they were supposed to be 
extinct. They next suffered from the malice, 
perfidy, and lust of an extraordinary person 
called Shotrowea,* who was finally driven across 

* I abbreviate these words from the originals, for the sole 
purpose of making- them readable to the ordinary reader. 
10 



66 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the St. Lawrence, and came to a town south of 
the shores of Lake Ontario, where, however, he 
only disguised his intentions, to repeat his cruel 
and perfidious deeds. This person, who assas- 
sinated many persons, and violated six virgins, 
they point to as a fiend in human shape. 

At this time the Big Quisquis* invaded the 
country, who pushed down the houses of the 
people, and created great consternation and dis- 
turbance. After making ineffectual resistance, 
they fled, but were at length relieved by a brave 
chief, who raised a body of men to battle him, 
but the animal himself retired. In this age of 
monsters, their country was invaded by another 
monster called the Big Elk, who was furious 
against men,f and destroyed the lives of many 
persons; but he was at length killed after a 
severe contest. A great horned serpent next ap- 
peared on Lake Ontario, who, by means of his 
poisonous breath, produced diseases, and caused 
the death of many, but he was at last compelled 
to retire by thunderbolts. This fourth calamity 
was not forgotten, when a fifth happened. A 
blazing star fell into a fort situated on the banks 
of the St. Lawrence, and destroyed the people. 
Such a phenomenon caused great panic and 
dread, and they regarded it as ominous of their 
entire destruction. Prior to this, a confederation 
had taken place among these northern tribes situ- 
ated north of and along the banks of the great 
lakes, and they had a ruling chief over all. This 

* Kvvis Kwis is the name of a hog in modern Iroquois, 
t Carnivorous — but this is not a characteristic of the elk. 



HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 67 

ruler repaired to the south to visit a ruler of great 
fame and authority, who resided at a great town 
in a lodge of gold. But it only proved to be an 
embassy of folly, for this great ruler, exercising 
an imperial sway, availing himself of the in- 
formation thus derived, of a great country full of 
resources, built many forts throughout the coun- 
try, and almost penetrated to the banks of Lake 
Erie. The people who had confederated on the 
north resisted. A long war of a hundred years 
standing ensued, but the northern people were 
better skilled in the use of the bow and arrow, 
and were more expert woodsmen and warriors. 
They at length prevailed, and taking all these 
towns and forts, left them a heap of ruins. But 
the prediction of the blazing star was now verified. 
The tribes who were held together by feeble 
bands, fell into disputes, and wars among them- 
selves, which were pursued through a long pe- 
riod, until they utterly destroyed each other, and 
so reduced their numbers, that the land v/as 
again overrun by wild beasts. 



CHAPTER III. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS, AS 
A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 



Mohawks — Oneidas, and the Oneida Stone — Onondagas 
— Cayugas — Senegas, and their origin — Tuscaroras, 

\ND their flight FROM NoRTH CAROLINA NecARIAGES 

St. Regis Colony. 

The first period of Indian history having thus 
terminated in discords, wars, and the mutual 
destruction of each other, tradition does not de- 
note how lono^ the depopulation of the country 
continued. It begins a second period by recol- 
lections of the Konoshioni, or Iroquois. They 
do not indicate what relation they bear to the 
ancient, broken down confederacy, glanced at 
in the preceding pages; but leave us to suppose 
that they may have been fragmentary descend- 
ants of it. That such a conclusion should not 
be formed, however, and in order to prove them- 
selves an original people in the land, they frame 
a new myth to begin their national existence. 
They boldly assert, that they were, through 
some means, confined in a mountain, from 
whose subterraneous bowels they were extricated 
by Tarenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 69 

They point to a place at or near the falls of the 
Oswego river, where this deliverance happened, 
and they look to this divine messenger, who 
could assume various shapes, as the friend and 
patron of their nation.* 

As soon as they were released, he gave them 
instructions respecting the mode of hunting, 
matrimony, worship, and other points. He 
warned them against the Evil Spirit, and gave 
them corn, beans, squashes, and potatoes and 
tobacco, and dogs to hunt their game. He 
bid them go towards the east, and personally 
guided them, until they entered a valley called 
Tenonanatchi, or the Mohawk. They followed 
this stream to its entrance into the Sanatatea, 
or as called by the Mohawks, Kohotatea, which 
they pursued to the sea. From this point they 
retraced their steps towards the west, originating 
as they went, in their order and position, the 
Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cay- 
ugas, and the Senecas. They do not omit the 
Tuscaroras, whom they acknowledged, after a 
long period of wandering, and a considerable 

* Where the Indian dwelt for a long time, it is customary 
for them to affirm in their metaphorical language, that they 
originated, or were created. When they date from such a 
spot, we find they frame a story, saying that they came out of 
a hill, &c,, at that spot. In 1791, an extensive work, con- 
sisting of ditches, &c., was found about forty miles south of 
Oswego, which is not remote from the probable place of orio^in, 
their traditions refer to ; and it may be worthy of examination 
with this particular view. Some account of this old fort ap- 
peared in the New York Magazine, 1792. 



70 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

change of language, and admitted as the sixth 
tribe of the confederacy. 

The Tuscaroras affirm, that after reaching the 
lake waters, they turned south-west, to the Mis- 
sissippi river, where a part of them crossed on a 
grape vine, but it broke, leaving the remainder 
east. Those who went west, have been lost and 
forgotten from their memory. The remainder, 
or eastern Tuscaroras, continued their wander- 
ings, hunting, and wars, until they had crossed 
the Alleghanies and reached the sea again, at 
the mouth of the Cautoh, or Neus river, in North 
Carolina. 

Each tribe was independent of the others. 
They increased in numbers, valor and skill, and 
in all sorts of knowledge necessary in the forest. 
But they began to fight and quarrel among 
themselves, and thus wasted and destroyed each 
other. They lived a life of perpetual fear, and 
built forts to defend themselves, or to protect 
their women and children. Besides this, the 
country was wide, and covered with large forests 
and lakes, and it gave shelter to many fierce 
wild animals and monsters, who beset their 
paths and kept them in dread. The evil spirit 
also plagued them with monstrous visitations. 
They were often induced to change their villages, 
sometimes from the fear of such enAnies, and 
sometimes from sickness or bad luck. In this 
manner, and owing to their perpetual hostility, 
their population was often reduced. How long 
they wandered and warred, they do not know. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 71 

At length it was proposed by some wise man 
that they should no longer fight against each 
other, but unite their strength against their ene- 
mies, the Alleghans, the Adirondacks, the Eries, 
and other ancient and once powerful tribes, who 
figure in the foreground of their early history, 
and who, if accounts be true, once greatly ex- 
celled them both in war and arts, the skill of 
making implements, canoes and utensils, &c. 

To this league, which was formed on the 
banks of Onondaga lake, they in time gave the 
name of the Long House, using the term sym- 
bolically, to denote that they were tired and 
braced together by blood and lineage, as well as 
political bonds. This house, agreeably to the 
allusion so often made by their speakers, during 
our colonial history, reached from the banks of 
the Hudson to the Lakes. At its eastern door 
stood the Mohawks, at the west the Senecas, 
who guarded it with vigilance. 

The Mohawks are supposed to be the eldest 
brother, in the symbolical chain of the Six Na- 
tions. Their own tradition assigns them this 
rank, and it appears to be consonant to other 
traditions. 

When Tarenya wagon, their liberator from 
their subterranean confinement, bid them travel 
east, he gave them his personal conduct and 
care until they had entered the Mohawk valley. 
Some of their western brethren call this stream 
Tenonanatche, or a river flowing through a 
mountain. In due time, they went on into the 



73 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

valley of the Hudson, and thence, if we credit 
their annals, to the sea. The seat of their power 
and growth was, however, in the genial valley 
where they had at first located. Here they lived, 
when the county was discovered, and here they 
continued to live and flourish until the events 
of the American revolution, and the determined 
cruelty which they exercised, under the authority 
and influence of the British crown, drove them 
out of it, and lost them the inheritance. 

It does not appear, from any thing history or 
tradition tells us, or from any monumental re- 
mains in the valley or its immediate vicinity, 
that it had before been occupied by other na- 
tions. They do not speak of having driven out 
or conquered any other tribe. There are no old 
forts or earthern walls, or other traces of military 
or defensive occupancy, of which we have heard. 
Their ramparts were rather their own brawny 
arms, stout bodies and brave hearts. From the 
earliest notices of them, they were renowned for 
wielding the war club and arrow with great dex- 
terity. They raised corn on the rich intervales, 
and pursued the deer, bear and elk in the subja- 
cent forests. Their dominion extended from 
the head waters of the Susquehanna and Dela- 
ware to Lake Champlain. They had pursued 
their forays into the territorial area of New Eng- 
land, as far, at least, as the central portions of 
the Connecticut, and had made their power felt, 
as temporary invaders, among the small inde- 
pendent tribes who lived about the region of the 
present city and harbor of New York. Wherever 



.,.-r ,/^ 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 73 

they went, they carried terror. Their very name, 
as we learn from Golden, was a synonyme for 
cruelty and dread."^ No tribe, perhaps, on the 
continent, produced better warriors, or have ever 
more fully realized, as a nation, the highest 
measure of heroism and military glory to which 
hunter nations can reach. 

In passing over the country which they once 
occupied, there is little to stimulate historical in- 
terest, beyond the general idea of their power 
and military renown. Their history is con- 
nected with the rise and influence of one of our 
most distinguished anti-revolutionary citizens, f^« »«^>'5 
Sir William Johnson. The influence he ob- 
tained over them was never exceeded, if equalled, 
by that of any other man of European lineage. 
He moulded them to his purposes in peace and 
war. They followed him in his most perilous 
expeditions, and sustained him manfully, as 
we know, in the two great contests to whose 
successful issue he owed his laurels, namely, 

* The word Mohawk itself, is not a term of Mohawk origin, 
but one imposed upon them, as is believed, by the Mohegan 
race, who inhabited the borders of the sea. Among this race 
the Dutch and English landed, and they would naturally 
adopt the term most in vogue for so celebrated a tribe. The 
Dutch, indeed, modified it to Maaquas — a modification which 
helps us to decipher its probable origin, in mauqica (by kindred 
tribes, mukwa, Sec.) a bear. By others, it may be traced to 
mohwa, a wolf, and awki, a country. The Mohawk sachems, 
who presented their condolence at Albany in 1690, on the 
taking of Schenectady, said, " We are all of the race of the 
bear, and a bear you know never yields, while one drop of 
blood is left. We must all be bears." — Golden. 
11 



74 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Lake George and Niagara. So completely iden- 
tified were they in feeling and policy with this 
politic and brave man, that after his death, 
which happened at the crisis of '76, they trans- 
ferred their attachment to his family, and stak- 
ing their all on the issue, abandoned their be- 
loved valley and the bones of their fathers, and 
fled to the less hospitable latitudes of Canada, 
from which they have never permanently re- 
turned. 

Some twenty or more persons of this tribe are 
mingled as residents of the villages of their 
brethren, the Senecas, Tuscaroras, and Oneidas. 
A much greater number exist with intermixture 
of other kindred tribes, in the St. Regis canton 
of St. Lawrence county ; but the greater num- 
ber of the parent tribe reside on lands appropri- 
ated for their use by the British government, at 
Brantford, on the Grand river of Canada West. 
To this place at the close of the war, they fol- 
lowed their distinguished leader, Thayendane- 
gea, the Jeptha of his tribe, who, against the 
custom of birth and descent, and every other 
obstacle, after the failure of the line of wise and 
brave chiefs to lead them to battle, was made 
their tekarahogea and leader, and displayed a de- 
gree of energy and firmness of purpose, which 
few of the aboriginal race in America have ever 
equalled. 

What light the examination of the ancient 
places of burial of this tribe in the valley would 
throw on their ancient history or arts, by en- 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 75 

tombed articles, cannot be told without exami- 
nations which have not been made. Probably 
the old places of Indian interment about Cana- 
joharie, Dionderoga, and Schenectady, would 
reveal something on this head, conforming at 
least, in age and style of art, with the stone 
pipes, tomahawks and amulets of the Onondaga 
and Genesee countries. The valley of the Scho- 
harie and that of the Tawasentha, or Norman's 
kill, near Albany, might also be expected to re- 
ward this species of research. A human head, 
rudely carved in stone, apparently aboriginal, 
was sent to the New York Historical Society 
early in 184o, which was represented to have 
been found in excavating a bank at Schenectady. 
If this piece of sculpture, which denoted more 
labor than art, be regarded as of Mohawk origin, 
it would evince no higher degree of art, in this 
respect, than was evinced by similar outlines 
cut in the rock, but not detached, by some of 
the New England tribes.* 

The Oneida canton of the Iroquois nation, de- 
duces its origin in a remote age, from the Onon- 
dagas, with the language of which, the Oneida 
has the closest affinity. According to a tradi- 
tion which was related to me, and which is be- 
lieved to be entitled to respect, they are descend- 
ed from two persons, who, in their obscure ages, 
and before a confederation had been thought of, 

* Rude carvings of this kind are represented to exist on the 
banks of the Connecticut, at Bellows' Falls, &c. 



76 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

went out from the people at Onondaga, and first 
dwelt at the head of the Oneida river. After in- 
creasing in numbers, they removed to the outlet of 
the Oneida creek, which flows into Oneida lake. 
Here they fortified themselves, and farther in- 
creased in numbers and power. Remains of 
this fortification are said still to exist. Their 
next removal was up the Oneida creek valley, 
to the storied locality of the Oneida stone, from 
which, by a figure of speech, they represent 
themselves to have sprung. This stone is in the 
town of Stockbridge, Madison county. It lies 
on a very commanding eminence, from which 
the entire valley, as far as the Oneida lake, can 
be seen in a clear atmosphere. The day of my 
visit being hazy at a distance, the lake could 
not be seen, although the view down the valley 
"was both magnificent and picturesque. This 
eminence was formerly covered with a butternut 
grove. Old and partly decayed trees of this 
species still remain in a few places. The ancient 
town extended in a transverse valley, south of 
this ridge of land, covered as it was with nut 
wood trees, and was completely sheltered by 
it, from the north winds. A copious and clear 
spring of water issued at the spot selected for 
their wigwams. Here in seclusion from their 
enemies, the tribe expanded and grew in num- 
bers. When it was necessary to light their 
pipes, and assemble to discuss their national 
affairs, they had only to ascend the hill, through 
its richly wooded grove, to its extreme summit. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 



77 



at the site of the Oneida stone. The following 
cut represents the stone, which became the na- 
tional altar. 




Standing at its side, at a probable elevation of 
400 or 500 feet above the Stanwix summit, they 
could survey the whole valley of the Oneida; 
and a beacon fire lighted here, was the signal 
for assembling their warriors from all the sur- 
rounding lateral plains and valleys. Time and 
usage rendered the object sacred, and as they 
expanded into nationality and power, while lo- 
cated around it, their sages asserted with meta- 
phorical truth, that they sprang from this rock. 
Stone, in this language, is onia. They called 
themselves Oniota-aug, people of, or who sprung 
from, the stone. There is some variety in the 
pronunciation. The Mohawks call them Oneota. 
The French wrote it Aneyoute, and the English 
and Dutch, Oneida, which latter has prevailed. 
Neither retained the plural inflection in aug, 
which carries the idea of people. 

With a knowledge of these traditions, I ap- 
proached the spot with deep interest. It occu- 



78 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

pies the extreme summit, as shown in the print. 
The first feeling, on approaching it, was one of 
disappointment at its size, but this feeUng soon 
subsided in the interest of its antiquity and na- 
tional associations. It is a large, but not enor- 
mous boulder of syenite,^ of the erratic block 
groupe, and, consequently, geologically foreign 
to the location. There are no rocks of this spe- 
cies in situ, I believe, nearer to it, in a northerly 
or easterly direction, than the Kayaderosseras or 
the Adirondack mountains.f The summit upon 
which, partly embedded, it reposes, is now a 
cleared field, in grass. A few primitive and se- 
condary boulders, all of lesser size, are strown 
about the ridge, and several of weight and mag- 
nitude rest upon its flanks, and in the valleys at 
its base. One of the largest of these is the white 
stone at the spring, which has been spoken of, I 
think, in some early notices of the Oneidas, as 
the true Oneida stone ; but this opinion is erro- 
neous, by the concurrent testimony of red and 
white men, cognizant of the facts, whom I con- 
sulted. This white stone, represented on the 
succeeding page, has been removed by the pro- 
prietor of the land, from its ancient position near 
the spring, to constitute part of a stone fence ; it 
is a carbonate of lime. 

*A specimen of the rock before me, brought thence, con- 
sists of flesh-colored feld-spar, quartz, and hornblende. 

tif the passage of the Mohawk through the Astorenga or 
Astogan hills, at Little Falls, discloses syenite, I am not aware 
of the fact. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 



79 




Tshejoana, one of the Oneidas, who served as 
my guide in visiting this interesting location, 
took me to see still another stone, of note, lying 
a mile or more distant, in a southerly direction, 
on a farm of Gen. Knox. This stone, of which 
a figure is given on the next page, I found to be 
a large boulder of dark, compact limestone, with 
organic remains. 

It was observable that the encrinites contained 
in this mass, were red. My Indian guide would 
have this color to be the result of the ancient 
Indian war paint. But the most striking char- 
acteristic of this rock, aside from its massy and 
flattened size, and channelled centre, consists 
in the evidences it affords of the action of water, 
in rounding and polishing it. In several places, 
my guide would have this wearing effect to have 
been produced by the rubbing and sharpening 



80 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



of the Indian war axes ; for he averred that it 
was customary for war parties who went out 
south against the Cherokees, to come and sharpen 
their axes upon this stone, and paint themselves 
for war. Whatever there was in this custom, I 
think he was probably mistaken in his locality ; 
yet it is a question in which others may difier. 
At any rate, geology had been quite beforehand 




with the Oneida legendary and philosopher, in 
producing and accounting for these two phe- 
nomena, namely, the red color and smoothed 
and channelled surfaces. Geology having been 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 81 

mentioned, I may add the following incident. 
I told Skanawadi, one of my guides, while stand- 
ing at the Oneida stone, lying on its proud an- 
cient elevation, that there was no stone like this, 
in place, till we went north to the Adirondacks, 
or Tehawas, or great lakes, and that this block 
of syenite had been brought here by the ocean, 
when it covered the whole land, and left on its 
recession. He replied, after a moment's reflec- 
tion, that "he believed this." 

At the time the Oneidas came to fix their lo- 
cation at this stone, the Konoshioni or Iroquois 
had not confederated. This people, in the early 
eras of their history, like the Algonquins, sent 
out individuals and bands, who became power- 
ful, and assumed the character of separate and 
independent tribes, making war and peace ad 
libitum. If this mode of multiplication be com- 
pared to the lower orders of creation, it had some 
striking analogies with it. Like the bear and the 
hawk, the moment the young member was ready 
to quit the parent lair or nest, it had not only to 
forage for subsistence, but to defend itself against 
other bears and hawks, and all other claimants 
to the food of the forest. To make war, is in 
fact the first and the last act of sovereignty of 
the pettiest of all our aboriginal tribes. AVar is 
with them the road, and the only road to fame, 
and the readiest way to secure a supply of spon- 
taneous food. They fight to increase or defend 
the boundaries of their hunting grounds. Thus, 
doubtless, arose the first difficulties betAveen the 
12 



82 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Oneidas and the other branches of the Iroquois. 
As soon as they were important enough to be 
noticed, and bold enough to defend themselves, 
they had to raise barriers around their villages, 
and Avhen these were carried, as they probably 
were, or were threatened to be, at two points, 
on the Oneida waters, they fled to the hill coun- 
try, at the site of the Oneida stone. How long 
they abode here, and made it the seat of their 
council fire, we can only conjecture. They can- 
not and do not pretend to tell. Wisdom, at 
length, taught the Iroquois sages, that they had 
enemies enough.withoat fighting with each other, 
and the idea of a confederation was suggested. 
Tradition has preserved the name of Thauno- 
waga as the original suggestor; but it has pre- 
served nothing more of his biography. The 
delegate from the Oneidas, was Otatschechta. 
That he came from, and lived at, the locality of 
the stone, and was renowned for his deeds and 
wisdom, is probable. This comprises the brief 
biography of two celebrated aboriginal sages 
and statesmen. Three periods of transference, 
of their council fire, have been named, all of 
which were probably prior to the confederation. 
Their fourth remove was down the valley to the 
present site of Oneida Castle — a place, which 
then, as now, they called Kunawaloa, meaniiig 
a man's head on a pole. At this place they lived 
and held their council fire, when the Dutch, in 
1609, discovered and ascended the Kohatatea, 
or Hudson river. Such are the accounts of their 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE., 83 

sachems and wise men. It is a general con- 
firmation of them, that the other members call 
them Younger Brother. 

By another and older Indian tradition, an 
earlier date is assigned to the Oneida canton, 
which is regarded as one of the original subdi- 
visions of the generic stock. It represents this 
stock as moving from the west to the east, and 
at another period, returning to the point of sun- 
setting, leaving the several separate tribes, or 
cantons, in their order as they passed. In this 
migration, the Oneidas are named as the second 
in geographical position and order of chronology. 
They located themselves, says the Tuscarora 
annalist,"* at a* stream called Kaw-nah-taw-te-ruh, 
or, Pineries, a tributary of the Susquehanna, 
which originates, according to this authority, in 
Allen's lake, ten miles south of Oneida Cas- 
tle. They were called Ne-haw-retahgo,f or Big- 
tree, a name, it may be remarked, which does 
not occur as the patronymic for this tribe in 
other authors, nor has it been retained by them. 
The distance and course denoted, coincide very 
nearly with that of the Oneida stone. It is not 
known, however, that any tributary of the Sus- 
quehanna exists in that vicinity. 

The two traditions may indeed be reconciled 
to truth, by supposing the latter the more ancient 
one, and that the Onondaga families before 
mentioned, constituted a subsequent accession 
to, and union with a band who had seated them- 

* Cusick. t In Tuscarora. 



84 IflSTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

selves at a prior era, at the spot denoted ; or this 
band may have remained there, on the general 
passage of the people eastward, and thus been 
the nucleus of the tribe, on the general return of 
the people west. In any view, however, they 
were called and are still called by the Iroquois, 
Younger Brother, which must be considered 
conclusive, that their nationality is of a period 
subsequent to that of the Mohawks, Onondagas, 
Cayugas and Senecas. This fact too, is adverse 
to the theory, which has too much the aspect 
of a mere theory, that the remigration of the 
Iroquois westward from the Atlantic, proceeded 
like a marching army, leaving tribes here and 
there as they went, in a regular chronological 
order, each of which took a name, and altered, as 
his phrase is, the language. The writer seems 
all along to have had the Jewish tribes in his 
mind. The truth is, ethnologically speaking, 
no tribe or nation alters, by an authoritative de- 
cision, or pre-thought, its language or idioms. 
Such alterations flow from time and circum- 
stances. Least of all, do wandering savage 
tribes gravely determine to alter their dialects. 
Accident, usage, or caprice, little by little, and 
at long intervals, is the parent of new dialects 
and languages. 

A few deductions may be added. By data 
before introduced, it will have been seen that it 
is probable the present confederation, whatever 
had preceded it, did not take place till about 
1539, or seventy years before the arrival of Ilud- 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 85 

son. It may be considered as probable, that the 
Oneidas did not remove from the Oneida stone, 
into the valley and plains of Oneida Castle, until 
after the event of the final confederation between 
the five tribes, gave them security against inter- 
nal enemies. The date of this transfer of the 
council fire, is rather remote, but not very 
ancient. A new forest has grown upon the old 
corn fields, which were once cultivated at their 
ancient settlement at the Oneida stone. The 
appearance of corn hills in rows, is still clearly 
perceptible in some parts of this forest. To an 
inquiry how such a preservation of the outlines 
of corn hills could be possible, my informant, 
who was an Oneida, answered, that in ancient 
times, the corn hills were made so large, that 
three clusters of stalks or sub-hills were raised 
on each circle or hill. There being no ploughs 
or other general means of turning up the earth, 
the same hill was used year after year, and thus 
its outlines became large and well defined. In 
a black walnut tree, standing on the site of one 
of these ancient corn fields, which was partly 
cut, and partly broken off, I counted on the cut 
part, one hundred cortical layers, and measuring 
the broken part, estimated it to have one hun- 
dred and forty more. Allowing a year for each 
ring, the commencement of the growth was in 
1555, or sixteen years after the supposed date of 
the confederacy, and two hundred and ninety 
years from the present date. 

The remaining history of the Oneidas can 



86 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

only be glanced at, but has some points of pecu- 
liar interest. They are the only tribe of the 
ancient Konoshioni who adhered to us, at least 
the better part of them, in our life and death 
struggle of the revolutionary war, saving some 
portion of the Tuscaroras; whose aid, however, 
is justly due to the Oneida influence. It was 
by the Oneidas that the Tuscaroras were brought 
off from the south. The Oneidas had long dis- 
tinguished themselves in their war excursions 
against the southern Indians. Their traditions 
are replete with accounts of these war parties 
against the Oyada, or Cherokees. They had 
found allies at the south in the Tuscaroras, who 
were themiselves engaged in desperate wars, at 
various periods, against the Catabas, and Chero- 
kees, and others. Besides this, Iroquois tradi- 
tion claims the Tuscaroras as one of their origi- 
nal cantons, or rather as a band of the original 
Eagwe Heowe, who had, in early times gone 
south.* And when a crisis happened in their 
affairs, they nobly went to their relief, and seated 
them on their western confines, between them- 
selves and the Onondagas, where they remained 
during the revolution. The Oneidas bore their 
full share in the long and bloody wars waged by 
the Iroquois for more than two centuries, against 
the French in the Canadas, and aganist the dis- 
tant Algonquins, Hurons and lUinese. And 
he who scans the ancient records of treaties 
and councils, will find that their sachems were 

* Vide Cusick's pamphlet. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 87 

represented in the conferences assembled on this 
continent, by the kings and potentates of Europe, 
who planted colonies at various times, between 
the respective gulfs of Mexico and the St. Law- 
rence. After the flight of the Mohawks, in 1776, 
they were in the van of the Konoshioni, and to 
use their symbolic phraseology, stood in the 
eastern door of the Long House. When the 
mixed Saxon population of New York and New 
England began, after the war of 1776, to move 
westward, the Oneidas first felt the pressure 
upon their territory. By siding with the colo- 
nists, they had secured their entire ancient do- 
main, from which they ceded to the state, from 
time to time, such portions as they did not want 
for cultivation, taking in lieu money annuities. 
Nor did they fail to profit, in a measure, by the 
example of industry set before them in agricul- 
ture and the arts. For a while, it is true, they 
reeled before the march of intemperance, and 
sunk in numbers, but many of them learned the 
art of holding the plough. From the earliest 
times they were noted, along with their more 
western brethren, for the cultivation of Lidian 
corn, and the planting of orchards. They also 
became tolerable herdsmen, and raised in con- 
siderable numbers, neat cattle, horses and hogs. 
To preserve their nationality, their sachems, 
about the year 1820, sent delegates west to look 
out a location for their permanent residence. 
They purchased a suitable territory from the 
Monomonces of Wisconsin, a wandering and 



88 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

non-industrious race, seated about Green bay, 
and expended a part of their annuities in the 
payment. This turned out a wise measure. 
They soon began to remove, and have at this 
time a very flourishing settlement on Duck river, 
in that territory. At that location they have 
established schools, temperance societies and a 
church. They bear a good reputation for morals 
and industry, and are advancing in civilization 
and the arts. 

By an official return of the date of 1844, they 
numbered 722 persons at that settlement. Two 
hundred afid ten are still seated within the boun- 
daries of New York, mostly in Oneida county. 
They are a mild people, of a good stature, and 
easy manners, and speak a soft dialect of the 
Iroquois, abounding in the liquid /, which, to- 
gether with a mild enunciation, imparts a pleas- 
ing character to their speech. 

Onondaga was, from the remotest times, the 
seat of the Iroquois government. Granting cre- 
dence to the account of their own origin, on the 
high grounds or falls of the Oswego, they had 
not proceeded far up the course of the widely 
gathered waters of this stream, when a portion 
of them planted their wigwams in this fertile 
region. Whatever was the cause of their mi- 
grating from their primary council fire, nothing 
was more natural than that, by pursuing this 
stream upward, they should separate into inde- 
pendent tribes, and by further tracing out its far 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 89 

spread forks, gradually expand themselves, as 
they were found by the discoverers and first set- 
tlers, over the entne area of western New York. 
On reaching the grand junction of Three River 
point, a part went up the Seneca river, who sub- 
sequently dividing, formed the Senecas and Cay- 
ugas. The bands who took the eastern fork, or 
Oneida river, pushed forward over the Deowain- 
sta or Rome summit, into the first large stream, 
flowing east, and became the Mohawks. The 
central or Onondaga fork was chosen by the 
portion who, from the hill country they first lo- 
cated in, took this name ; and from them, the 
Oneidas, pursuing in fact the track of the Mo- 
hawks, were an off'-shoot. That such was the 
general route, and causes of their separation, 
appears as evident as strong probabilities, in 
coincidence with their own traditions and mo- 
dern discovery, can make it. That the whole 
of the original number who started from the 
south banks of Lake Ontario, did not keep to- 
gether till they reached the valley of the Hudson 
and the sea, and then go back to the west — for 
so their general tradition has it — is also both rea- 
sonable and probable to suppose. Large bodies 
of hunters cannot keep long together. They 
must separate to procure food, and would sepa- 
rate from other causes. The first effect of their 
separation and spread into various rich valleys, 
abounding in game, nuts and fish, was a rapid 
increase in population. The next, to become 
13 



90 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

overbearing, quarrel abont territory, and fight. 
They were compelled to build forts to defend 
their stations, or secure their women and child- 
ren, at night, and, by this system, kept down 
their population to about its first point of increase. 
It is altogether probable that they did not more 
than maintain, for ages, a stationary population, 
which occasionally went down by disease and 
other calamities, and again revived, as we know 
that natural causes, in the laws of vitality, will 
revive a people quickly, after the scourge of pes- 
tilence. 

The idea of a confederation was, it is believed, 
an old one with this people, for the very oldest 
traditions speak of something of this kind, among 
the lake and St. Lawrence tribes of older days. 
When the present league was formed, on the 
banks of the Onondaga lake, this centra] tribe 
had manifestly greatly increased in strength, and 
distinguished itself in arms, and feats of hunting 
and daring against giants and monsters, for in 
such rencontres their traditions abound. 

Most distinguished, however, above all others, 
east or west, was a leader of great courage, Avis- 
dom and address, called Atotarho; and when 
they proposed to form a league, this person, wbo 
had inspired dread, and kept himself retired, 
was anxiously sought. He was found by the 
Mohawk embassy, who were charged with the 
matter, as he is represented in the annexed speci- 
men of picture writing, composedly sitting in a 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 



91 



swamp, smoking his pipe, and rendered com- 
pletely invulnerable, by living serpents. These 




animals extended their hissing heads from all 
parts of his head and body. Every thing about 
him, and the place of his residence, was such as 
to inspire fear and respect. His dishes and 
spoons were made of the skulls of enemies, 
whom he had slain in battle. Him, when they 
had duly approached with presents and burned 
tobacco in friendship, in their pipes, by way of 
frankincense, they placed at the head of their 
league, as its presiding officer. They collected a 
large quantity of wampum, and invested him 
with a broad belt of this sacred article. I found 
the original drawing of this personage, from 
which the above is reduced, in the summer of 
1845, in the house of a Seneca on the Cattarau- 
gus reservation. The owner of this curious pic- 
torial relic, on being asked, proceeded to a chest 
and carefully took it from its envelope, and al- 



92 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

lowed me to make a copy. It represents Atotar- 
ho, at the moment of his discovery, by the Mo- 
hawk delegation. 

The right thus awarded to the Onondagas, to 
furnish a presiding officer for the league, has 
ever been retained, and is still possessed by that 
canton. To the Mohawks, at the same time, 
was awarded the tekarahogea, or chief war-cap- 
tain; an office, however, of the general recogni- 
tion of which, there is a disagreement amongst 
interpreters. 

A singular tradition may be here added. It 
is said that the thirteenth Atotarho reigned at 
Onondaga when America was discovered. 

Giving to each Atotarho a rule of fifteen years, 
and taking Hudson's voyage as the period the 
Indians allude to, we should have A. D. 1414, 
as the era of the present confederacy, in place 
of 1539, before mentioned on the authority of a 
general tradition recorded by Pyrlaus. We can- 
not, however, place much reliance upon Cusick's 
chronology. 

The history of the Caijugas does not stand out 
prominently among the Iroquois, while it will 
be found that as one of the inclusive tribes who 
carried their name and fame so high among the 
aborigines, they have performed their due part, 
and produced warriors, sages and speakers of 
eminence. Were every thing else, indeed, blot- 
ted out of their history, the fact of their having 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 93 

produced a Logan"* would be sufficient to rescue 
their memory from oblivion. In their early 
search after a place to hunt, fish and plant corn, 
as an independent tribe, they, on the assumption 
of their own traditions, passed up the Seneca 
river, into the sylvan and beautiful lake which 
bears their name. In visiting this lake the pre- 
sent year, in search of their ancient sites, it was 
not without a melancholy interest, that I survey- 
ed, within the boundaries of Aurora, the remains 
of one of those apple orchards, which were ruth- 
lessly cut down by a detachment of the army of 
Gen. Sullivan, in his severe but necessary expe- 
dition in 1778. Many vestiges of their ancient 
residence still remain in Cayuga county, nor has 
local memory, in its intelligent and hospitable 
inhabitants, dropped from its scroll the names 
of several of its distinguished chiefs, and their 
places of abode. They point to a spot at Spring- 
port, now trenched on by the road, where lie 
the remains of Karistagea, better known by his 
English appellative of Steeltrap, one of their 
noted chiefs and wise men, who extended the 
hospitalities of his lodge to the first settlers on 
the Military Tract. The nation itself, although 
they had fought strenuously under the Red Cross 
of St. George in the Revolutionary war, appear- 
ed to be composed of mild and peaceable men, 
of friendly dispositions toward the settlers. They 
brought venison, fish and wild fruits for sale to 

* Logan was the son of Skellelimus, a Cayuga, and went 
early to the Ohio valley, if he were not born there. 



94 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the doors of families, whose ekler branches yet 
dwell upon the shores of the Cayuga. 

Yet their history is a melancholy one, and their 
decline, on the settlement of western New York, 
was probably one of the most striking- instances 
of the rapid depopulation of a tribe in modern 
days. Their first cession of land to the state was 
in 1789. This was confirmed at the general treaty 
of Fort Stanwix in 1790, and such had been the 
pressure of emigration into that quarter, that in 
1795, at a treaty held at Cayuga bridge, they ced- 
ed their reserve of one hundred miles square in the 
valley of the Seneca outlet and the basin of Cay- 
uga lake, reserving but four miles square. In 
these treaties they deemed themselves wise to 
change into large money annuities,*" a territory 
which was no longer useful for hunting, and 
which they did not cultivate. 

Experience has shown, however, throughout 
America, that Indian tribes, who live on annui- 
ties, and not by agricultural labor, are in the 
most dangerous condition of rapid decline. To 
render the danger eminent, it needs but the close 
proximity of a European population, who pre- 
sent the means of indulging selfish gratifications. 
Among these means, so seductive to the Indian 
mind, ardent spirits have ever been the most 
baneful. It proved so at least with the Cayu- 
gas, for within sixteen years after the treaty of 
Fort Stanwix, they had all emigrated west. 

* A perpetual annuity of $2,300 was secured by one of 
these treaties. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 95 

Some of them had rejoined their brethren, who 
followed Brant and the Mohawks to Canada. 
Some had migrated to Sandusky, in Ohio, and 
others found a refuge among the Senecas, near 
Buffalo. With the Senecas they have ever been 
on the most intimate terms. Whilst they lived 
on the Cayuga lake, and the latter on the Sene- 
ca, they were separated by a midland range of 
forest, little more than sixteen miles broad. 
They intermingled freely in their hunting par- 
ties, and even in their villages. The inhabitants 
still point to a large tree near Canoga, on the 
banks of Cayuga lake, where the celebrated ora- 
tor. Red Jacket, was born. 

In investigating the Indian population of New 
York, under the provisions of the census act, I 
found 114 Cayugas residing in twenty families, 
on the Cattaraugus reservation. These families 
cultivate 316 acres of land, and during the year 
1845, they raised 1,970 bushels of corn, 1,622 of 
oats, 210 of wheat, 955 of potatoes, and 277 of 
buckwheat, besides esculents and small articles. 
They were found to possess 43 milch cows, 39 
horses, 40 sheep, and 109 hogs. Besides the 
Cayugas residing on the Cattaraugus, there were 
found, dispersed among the other cantons, 83 
persons; making the whole number within the 
boundaries of New York, 197. The style of 
their dwellings is, generally, that of squared tim- 
ber, plainly but comfortably furnished, with glass 
windows, and plain common furniture. Sixteen 
of the number are members of protestant church- 



96 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

es. The males dress exclusively in the European 
fashion, and their condition and prospects are, 
like those of the Senecas, among whom they 
dwell, in a high degree encouraging to the friends 
of humanity. Of the number out of the bounds 
of the state, there have been no accurate means 
of judging. The vocabulary of their language 
denotes a close affinity with other tribes of this 
family. 

From a remark made to me by a daughter of 
Brant, (the late Mrs. Kerr,) at her house near 
Wellington square, Canada, in 1843, I am in- 
clined to think, that in the early wars waged 
by the Iroquois against the Virginia Indians, the 
Cayug'as defeated and made prisoners the rem- 
nant of the Tuteloes, whom they brought and 
settled among them, in the Cayuga country. 

One of the first traits which strikes an observ- 
er on entering the territory of the Seneca tribe, 
is the fact that they are called by a name which 
is not known in their vocabulary, and which 
they only recognize from having long been thus 
designated by others. Identical as it is in its 
present orthography, with the Uctme of the Ro- 
man moralist, it is yet wholly imjn'obable that 
it had any such origin; it must be regarded as 
an accidental coincidence of sound in some other 
Indian tongue. That this tongue is the Mo- 
hawk, a people who stood first in position east 
on the Iroquois borders, is probable, but not cer- 
tain. The earlier authors spelt it with a /.-, with 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 97 

the a final, which probably had the usual broad 
sound. It occurs on a map of 1614, Avhich was 
brought over from Holland recently, by the his- 
torical agent of the state, and has been laid, by 
that gentleman, before the New York Historical 
Society, with the proofs of its genuineness, thus 
bringing the use of the word within five years 
of the voyage of Hudson. 

The term by which they call themselves is 
Nundowoga, or the People of the Hill. A name 
which leads us at once to consider the accounts 
of their own origin. Various relations of this 
story have been given, diftering in some of their 
details, but all coinciding in the main events, 
namely, that they originated and lived on a well 
known hill, at the head of Canandaigua lake, 
where they were put in eminent peril of utter 
destruction by a monstrous serpent, which circled 
itself about the fort and lay with its mouth open 
at the gate. The following is given from a na- 
tive source, and has some novel details to re- 
commend it. 

While the tribe had its seat and council fire 
on this hill, a woman and her son were living 
near it, when the boy one day caught a small 
two-headed serpent called Kaistowanea, in the 
bushes. He brought it home as a pet to amuse 
himself, and put it in a box, where he fed it on 
bird's flesh and other dainties. After some time 
it had become so large that it rested on the 
beams of the lodge, and the hunters were obliged 
to feed it with deer; but it soon went out and 
14 



98 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

made its abode on a neighboring hill, where it 
maintained itself. It often went out and sport- 
ed in the lake, and in time became so large and 
mischievous that the tribe were put in dread of 
it. They consulted on the subject one evening, 
and determined to fly next morning; but with 
the light of the next morning the monster had 
encircled the hill and lay with its double jaws 
extended before the gate. Some attempted to 
pass out, but were driven back ; others tried to 
climb over its body, but were unable. Hunger 
at last drove them to desperation, and they made 
a rush to pass, but only rushed into the monster's 
double jaws. All were devoured but a warrior 
and his sister, who waited in vain expectancy 
of relief. At length the warrior had a dream, 
in which he was showed that if he would fledge 
his arrows with the hair of his sister, the charm 
would prevail over their enemy. He was warn- 
ed not to heed the frightful heads and hissing 
tongues, but to shoot at the heart. Accordingly, 
the next morning he armed himself with his 
keenest weapons, charmed as directed, and bold- 
ly shot at the serpent's heart. The instanta- 
neous recoiling of the monster proved that the 
wound was mortal. He began in great agony 
to roll down the hill, breaking down trees and 
uttering horrid noises, until he rolled into the 
lake. Here he slaked his thirst, and tried by 
water to mitigate his agony, dashing about in 
fury. At length he vomited up all the people 
whom he had eaten, and immediately expired 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 99 

and sunk to the bottom.* The fort was imme- 
diately deserted, and all who had escaped went 
with their deliverer to, and fixed their council 
fire on, the west shores of Seneca lake, where 
Geneva now stands. 

The general course of the migration and con- 
quests of the Senecas has, however, been to- 
wards the west. Taking their own general and 
ancient traditions of the parent stock, to wit, 
their origin in the valley of the Oswego, they 
may be supposed to have followed the Seneca 
branch of those outspread waters to the banks 
of the Seneca and Canandaigua lakes, and 
thence into the rich valley of the Genesee. At 
an early day they were limited to the region 
east of this capital stream, which, crossing the 
country in a transverse direction, formed a natu- 
ral boundary. There lived west of it, in ancient 
times, a tribe who are known as Alleghans, An- 
dastes and Eries, or, as the Senecas call them, 
Kah-kwas. They had their council fires at or 
near Buffalo, extending west and also east. The 
people called by the French the Neuter Nation, 
had placed themselves, so far as we can learn, "^ 
on the waters of Oak-Orchard creek, which 
draws its tributaries in part from the fertile dis- 

* If this be viewed as an allegory, it may admit of this in- 
terpretation. Internal feuds created by somebody brought up 
in their own lodges, originated hatred and hot blood. In a 
long and bloody war, the nation was nearly exterminated ; at 
length the affections of a woman prevailed. Harmony was 
restored, and a new era of prosperity began, by removing the 
council fire to another place. 



100 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

tricts of Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties. 
From the accounts of the Tuscaroras, this peo- 
ple were governed in early times by a queen, 
who ruled over twelve forts in that quarter. 
North of them, embracing the Niagara ridge and 
the country below it, dwelt a branch of the Al- 
gonquin nation, who are called by the same 
authority, Twankannas. Other names occur, 
which are believed to be either synonymes for 
these, or minor divisions of the three principal 
tribes named, of which some further notice will 
be taken in a subsequent paper on the antiqua- 
rian remains of the country. 

That these Trans-Genesean people were popu- 
lous and warlike, not only maintaining their 
grounds against the Senecas, but often defeating 
them and driving them back, is proved not only 
by the traditions of the Senecas themselves, but 
by the striking evidences of their military 
strength and skill, denoted by the remains of 
forts and intrenchments and cemeteries, yet ex- 
isting throughout the extensive area included 
between the Genesee and the Niagara, extend- 
ing up the southern shores of Lake Erie to Chau- 
tauque and the other principal known Indian 
routes to the waters of the Allegany and Ohio. 
There is, at least, one authority {Cusick) for believ- 
ing that the Eries themselves were remotely de- 
scended from the Senecas, and we have living 
tradition to prove that, at the time of their linal 
defeat and so called extermination, some of 
them fled west, whilst the remainder of them. 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 101 

scattered, cut up and depressed, were incorpo- 
rated in the Seneca canton. 

To the Twankannas, the Neuter Nation, and 
other tribes and bands, not being Eries, who 
lived in this portion of the state, the Iroquois 
applied the general term of Adirondacks,^ a 
bold, warlike, northern race, who spread over 
many degrees of latitude and longitude in former 
days, covering by generic affiliation with other 
tribes, all New England and the Atlantic coast, to 
North Carolina, and who are still, in their nu- 
merous and subdivided descendants, in the 
upper lakes and the west, the most numerous of 
any of the aboriginal stocks yet existing east of 
the Mississippi and Missouri. So long as the 
Iroquois remained divided, the Eries and their 
^Algonquin allies kept their ground ; and there is 
no reason to believe that they began to decline 
until a considerable period after the era of the 
Onondaga league. That was at first but little 
more than an agreement to stand by each other, 
and to send delegates and forward news to a 
central council; but it put an end to intestine 
wars, and its popular capacities soon developed 
themselves, and made it formidable to their 
neighbors. Thus much by way of prelude to 
their Avars, to be noticed hereafter. 

The Senecas were from the earliest times the 
most powerful of the Iroquois, nearly doubling, 
in its best estate, the Mohawks. Their popula- 
tion in past days has been variously estimated, 

* Called Algonquins by the French. 



102 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

and often exaggerated. Perhaps Dalton, who 
puts it at 400 warriors, or 2,000 souls, during the 
American war, verges to the opposite extreme, 
and actually underrates it. Be this as it may, 
I found the entire Seneca population, within the 
state, to be 2,383, residing on four reservations 
in the counties of Niagara and Genesee, Erie, 
Chautauque, Cattaraugus and Allegany. They 
w^ere found to be divided into 538 families, who 
cultivated, in the aggregate, 8,416 acres of land. 
The produce of this land, as near as it could be 
obtained, as some declined stating it, was 21,- 
341 bushels of corn, 3,745 of wheat, 20,039 of 
oats, and 12,469 of potatoes, besides buckwheat, 
turneps, peas, and smaller articles. They pos- 
sess 1,537 neat cattle, 510 milch cows, 626 horses, 
335 sheep and 2,269 hogs. Other details of their 
advance in agriculture were equally flattering. 
They cut large quantities of meadow land, pos- 
sess an adequate supply of farming utensils, 
carts, wagons, including many tasty buggies and 
sleighs. Very little of their means of subsist- 
ence, even in the most unfavored positions, is 
derived from the chase. Upwards of 4,000 fruit 
trees were counted. The style of their build- 
ings, fences and household furniture, as well as 
the dress of the males, is not essentially different, 
and little, often nothing at all, inferior to that 
of their white neighbors. Temperance and tem- 
perance societies exist in a good state in each 
canton. Fifteen of their youth have received 
a collegiate or academic education. A number 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 103 

of these have studied professions. About 350 of 
the children attend private or missionary schools, 
and so far as I could obtain returns, some 250 
adults are enrolled as members of protestant 
churches. Of this number, there are several 
catechists and intelligent educated translators 
and interpreters of the language. On the four 
reservations, there are fifteen native mechanics 
and three phy^cians. 

Thus it appears that the energies once de- 
voted by their ancestors to war and hunting, are 
in good earnest now directed to husbandry 
and the arts; and there is every encouragement 
to hope, and reason to believe, that by a con- 
tinuance in the best measures, they will be 
wholly reclaimed and added to the number of 
useful, intelligent and moral citizens. In view- 
ing the condition of such a people, hardy, well 
formed and active, and pressing forward, as they 
are, in the great experiment of civilization, hu- 
manity consoles itself with the hope, that the 
energy and firmness of purpose which once car- 
ried them, in pursuit of warlike glory, far and 
wide, will develope itself, as it has already sig- 
nally commenced to do, in the labors of the field 
and the workshop. Their rude picture-writing 
upon the bark of trees, has given place to the 
school. Their prophets' lodges have been con- 
verted into churches ; their midnight orgies, at 
the Indian dancing house, into societies to pro- 
mote temperance. It is but applying present 
experience to future results, to predict that these 



104 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

results may become general. The eloquence 
thrown out by a Red Jacket, in opposition to 
the farther curtailment of their territory, may 
shine out, in some of his descendants, to en- 
lighten his people in agriculture, morals and 
political economy. Nor ought we to doubt that 
the desk and the forum are yet to resound with 
Seneca eloquence. 

• 

The traditions of the Tuscarora canton affirm, 
that they are descendants of the original family 
of Iroquois, who began their existence, or their 
nationality at least, at or near the falls of the Os- 
wego. After the migration of the parent tribe to- 
wards the sea, and their return west and separa- 
tion into tribes, this band went on west till they 
reached Lake Erie. From hence they travelled 
southwest till they reached the Mississippi. 
Part of them crossed the river, and they were 
thus divided. Those who went over, became, in . 
time, the enemies of such as remained on its 
eastern banks, and were finally lost and forgot- 
ten from their memory. 

Tarenyawagon, who was the patron of the 
home bands, did not fail, in this crisis, to direct 
their way also. After giving them practical in- 
structions in war and hunting, he guided their 
footsteps in their journeys, south and east, until 
they had crossed the Alleganies, and reached 
the shores of the sea, on the coasts which are 
now called the Carolinas. They were directed 
to fix their residence on the banks of the Cuu- 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 105 

tan-0, that is, a pine in the water, now called 
Neiise river, in North Carolina. By this time 
their language was altered, but not so much but 
that they could understand each other. Here 
Tarenyawagon left them to hunt, increase and 
prosper, whilst he returned to direct the remain- 
ing Five Nations to form their confederacy. 
Thus far the Tuscarora annalist. History picks 
up the Tuscaroras precisely where tradition and 
fable leave them. On the settlement of Vir- 
ginia and the Carolinas, they were found to be 
the first nation of any stability of purpose, after 
passing the Powhatanic tribes, in proceeding 
south. The intervening coast tribes were petty 
chieftaindoms, few in numbers, and disunited 
in action or policy. They were essentially ich- 
thiophagi. They soon fell before the two-fold 
influence of idleness and rum, and have left 
little or no history, or traits, worth preserving. 
Such is the history of the Chowanokes,^ the 
Maratocks, and the Mangoacks, who, in one 
hundred and twenty years from the date of 
Raleigh's patent, had dwindled from 6,000 to 
46 bowmen.f 

The Tuscaroras, who lived in the game coun- 
try, on the skirts of the mountains, showed 
themselves at the mouths of Cautano or Neuse, 
Contentny, and Taw rivers. They were, at this 

* Mr. Jefferson thinks (vide Notes, p. 152, London ed, of 
1787), that this tribe was connected witli the Tutelos, Notta- 
ways and Meherrins ot" Virginia. 

t Williamson. 
15 



106 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

time, numerous and warlike, and as inimical to 
the inhabitants of the Carolinas, as they were 
numerous. They were at war with the Catabas, 
the Cowetas, and the Cherokees. Numbers, 
bravery and success, and abundance of animal 
food, made them haughty, and they evinced the 
disposition of their northern brethren, by trying 
to subjugate and break down their neighbors. 
What they had done with red men, very ef- 
fectually, it must be confessed at least with the 
Catabas, they thought they might do with the 
Huguenots of France, the cavaliers of England, 
and the Protestants of the baronetcy of Graffen- 
ried, in Germany. It is not improbable, indeed, 
that at a prior era, the Tuscaroras were the very 
people who had exterminated the colony left on 
"Roanoke island, under the first attempts of Sir 
AValter Raleigh to colonize Virginia. But, if 
such were the fact — a mere conjecture at best — 
they mistook their present neighbors, and their 
own position, in attempting to repeat the act. 

This scheme was, however, deeply laid, al- 
though it appeared to be a matter hastily exe- 
cuted. They had long felt a growing jealousy 
of the encroaching settlements, and gave vent 
to it, the first occasion that offered, by seizing 
Lawson, the surveyor-general of the province, 
on a trip up the Neuse, and after a kind of trial 
before a council, putting him to death. The 
Baron Graffenried, who was with him, and was 
also condemned, but saved, on an appeal on 
the ground of his being a man of rank, and 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 107 

not an Englishman; but they kept him a pri- 
soner, while they proceeded to execute their 
ill-advised, and nefarious plot, which was nothing 
less than the massacre of the entire colony in 
one day. The day fixed for this tragedy, was 
the 22d of September, 1711. Williamson^* 
thinks it was an impulsive movement arising 
from the killing of Lawson, who being a pub- 
lic officer, they felt themselves committed in 
a war, and resolved to proceed with the bloody 
work. For this purpose they divided them- 
selves into small bands of six or seven, and 
entering the settlements at various points, they 
struck down with the tomahawk on one day, 
one hundred and thirty persons. To conceal 
their intentions, they had left their arms, and 
relied on their hatchets alone. In this plot, they 
were assisted by the sea-coast bands of Corees, 
Mattamuskeets, and Bear river Indians, some 
three or four tribes, denoting a league and ma- 
turity in the attempt. But the plan did not suc- 
ceed to their wishes, for besides that the colony 
consisted then of nearly two thousand men, 
much spread, it nmst needs have happened that 
many at the time of attack, would be absent 
from their homes. The colonists rallied, and 
prepared to carry the war home to their subtle 
assailants. They asked the aid of South Caro- 
lina, which came gallantly to their rescue. The 
legislature of that province having granted four 
thousand pounds, placed Col. BarnM^ell at the 

* History of North Carolina. 



108 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

head of a small detachment of armed men, sup- 
ported by a large body of Cherokees, Creeks and 
Catabas, the deadly enemies of the Tascaroras. 
He killed, in various actions, thirty Tuscaroras, 
and fifty of the sea-coast auxiliaries, and took 
two hundred women and children of the latter 
prisoners, and returned. The war thus com- 
menced was continued, with various results, for 
some few years. The aid of Virginia, as well as 
South Carolina, was invoked the next year. 
The Tuscaroras also made vigorous exertions. 
They were well provided with arms and ammu- 
nition, and despatched runners to the Senecas 
for aid. Their auxiliaries, the Mattamuskeets, 
Corees, and others, killed or made prisoners the 
next winter, forty inhabitants of the island of 
Roanoke or Croatan. The Tuscaroras prepared 
to maintain their power, by entrenching them- 
selves behind a picketed work on the river Taw. 
This work, called fort Naharuke, stood on a plain 
beside a creek, and consisted of a rampart of 
earth, covering the whole ground occupied, de- 
fended with palisades. To protect themselves 
from artillery, they had dug within this wall, 
square pits of earth, six feet deep, covered with 
poles, and connected by a wall of earth. They 
were well provided with corn and ammunition, 
and had the means of standing a siege, had they 
made a wise provision for water. To obtain this 
necessary article, they relied on an artificial 
ditch leading to the stream. 

To this aboriginal fort Col. Moore of South 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 109 

Carolina, drove them from the lower country 
with 40 musketeers and 800 Indians, in the early 
part of the winter of 1713, after having been de- 
tained on his march by a deep snow. He im- 
mediately saw the mistake of the water trench, 
and placed cannon to rake it. He then fortified 
the only passage or point of land, where the In- 
dians would be likely to escape, and began regu- 
lar approaches to the work, which he entered 
on the 26th of March, 1713, taking 800 Tusca- 
roras prisoners. It is not said how many were 
killed. He had lost of his army, during the 
siege, 22 white, and 36 red men killed, and 29 
of the former, and 50 of the latter wounded. 
The Cherokees and their allies claimed the pri- 
soners, who were taken to the south, and sold 
as slaves, a part, as we are left to infer, being 
offered by the southern Indians, to appease the 
spirit of retaliation for prior losses by them. 

This brought the tribe to terms, and they en- 
tered into preliminaries of peace, by which they 
agreed to deliver up twenty men, who were the 
contrivers of the plot, and who took Lawson and 
Graffenried ; to restore all prisoners, horses and 
cattle, arms and other property; to treat and 
pursue the Mattamuskeets and their other allies, 
as enemies; and finally, to give two hostages 
for the peaceable conduct of each of their towns. 

During the following summer, the chief, call- 
ed King Blount, brought in thirty scalps from 
his miserably treated allies; "but the greater 
part of the nation," says the historian before 



110 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

quoted, " unable to contend, and unwilling to 
submit, removed to the northward, and joined 
the Seneca, and other confederate tribes on the 
frontiers of New York." (Williamson.) Those 
who remained, were to have settled between the 
Neuse and Taw rivers; but an Indian war hav- 
ing broken out in the southern colonies in 1715, 
only three months after the peace, with the Co- 
rees and their other former allies, the Tuscaro- 
ras, now the remains of a broken down tribe, 
feeble in numbers and power, obtained permis- 
sion to settle on the north side of the Roanoke 
river, on a reservation, where some of them were 
living in 1803. 

The whole number of Indians living in North 
Carolina in 1708, estimating their fighting men, 
were 1,608, of whom the Tuscaroras constituted 
1,200, which would give them, on the ordinary 
principle of estimating their population, 6,000 
souls. Two thirds of the whole number of their 
fighting men were captured at the taking of 
fort Naharuke, in 1713. How many were killed 
on other occasions is not certainly known; but 
it is probable that in this short war of but three 
years' duration, and owing to the desertion of 
families, death by sickness, want, and other 
casualties consequent upon the surrender of 
Naharuke, they sunk to almost immediate in- 
siffnificance. Those who fled to their kindred 
in western New York, were never counted. 
They were estimated, perhaps high, at 200 war- 
riors, in 1776. They were located, at first, im- 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. Ill 

mediately west of, and in juxtaposition to, the 
Oneidas; along with whom they are mentioned 
as being secured in their rights, by the treaty of 
Fort Stanwix, in 1784. But in fact they had no 
independent claim to territory, living merely as 
guests, although the confederacy had admitted 
them as an integral member, after their disas- 
trous flight from North Carolina, calling them- 
selves no longer the Five, but the Six Nations. 
The Senecas gave them lands on the Niagara 
ridge, after the American revolution ; these were 
subsequently secvired to them in a reservation 
made by the state, in the present bounds of Ni- 
agara county. Here they have continued to 
dwell, having added to their possessions, by an 
early purchase from the Holland Land Company, 
made with the avails of the sale of their reser- 
vation north of the Roanoke, in North Carolina. 

But if the Tuscaroras have erred in policy, and 
sunk in numbers, with a rapidity and in a ratio 
unequalled by any other member of the confede- 
racy, if we except the Onondagas and Cayugas, 
they may be said to have grown wise by expe- 
rience. Low as their present numbers are, they 
hold an exalted rank among their brethren for 
industry, temperance, and their general advance 
in arts, agriculture and morals. 

I found, on making the enumeration, 283 per- 
sons living in 53 families, of whom 151 were 
males and 167 females. These families culti- 
vated the past year 2,080 acres of land, on which 
they raised 4,897 bushels of wheat, 3,515 of corn, 



112 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

4,085 of oats, 1,166 of potatoes, besides limited 
quantities of peas, beans, buckwheat and turneps. 
They possess 336 neat cattle, 98 milch cows, 
making 7,537 pounds of butter, 153 horses, 215 
sheep, and 596 hogs. 

When it is considered that this enumeration 
gives an average of six neat cattle, three horses, 
(nearly), two milch cows (nearly), 10 hogs, and 
92 bushels of wheat, and 966 of corn to each 
family, their capacity to sustain themselves, and 
their advance as agriculturists will be perceived. 
Fifty-nine ploughs were found amongst fifty- 
three families. They cut 195 acres of meadow to 
sustain their cattle. They had over 1,500 fruit 
trees, and dwelt in excellent frame or square- 
timber houses, well finished, and for the most 
part well furnished. I noticed one edifice of 
stone, in the process of building, seated on rising 
grounds, amidst shade trees, which denotes both 
wealth and taste. Other results of civilization 
are to be already observed. Among these there 
are no slight indications of classes of society, 
arranging themselves, as rich and poor, intelli- 
gent and ignorant, industrious and idle, moral 
and immoral. 

Of the entire population, 63 are church mem- 
bers, and 231 members of temperance societies, 
which is a far higher proportion than is found 
in any other of the cantons. 

The Tuscaroras were probably admitted into 
the confederacy about 1714. INiiie years after- 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 113 

wards the Iroquois received the Necariages. Un- 
der this name the long expatriated Quatoghies, 
or Hurons, then living at Teiodonderoghie or 
Michilimackinac, were taken into the confede- 
racy as the seventh tribe, or canton. This act 
was consummated in the reign of Greorge II., at 
a public council held at Albany on the 30th May, 
1723, on their own desire. A delegation of eighty 
men, who had their families with them, were 
present. Of this curious transaction but little is 
known. For although done in faith, it was not 
perceived that a tribe so far separated from the 
main body, although now reconciled, and official- 
ly incorporated, could not effectually coalesce and 
act as one. And accordingly, it does not appear 
by the subsequent history of the confederacy, 
that they ever came to recognize, permanently, 
the Necariages as a seventh nation. The foun- 
dation for this act of admission had been laid at 
a prior period by the daring and adroit policy of 
Adario, who had so skilfully contrived to shift 
the atrocity of his own act, in the capture of the 
Iroquois delegates on the St. Lawrence, on the 
governor-general of Canada. 

It has been mentioned, in a preceding page, 
that the Iroquois recommended their political 
league as a model to the colonies, long before 
the American revolution was thought of And 
it is remarkable that its typical character, in re- 
lation to our present union, should have been 
also sustained, in the feature of the admission, 
if not annexation, of new tribes, who became 
16 



114 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

equal participants of all the original rights and 
privileges of the confederacy. 

The St. Regis colony, or hand, is an ofF-shoot 
of the Iroquois stock, but not a member of the 
confederacy. Tt originated in the efforts com- 
menced about the middle of the 17th century, 
by the Roman catholic church of France, to 
draw the Iroquois into communion with that 
church. It was, however, but a part of the 
public policy, which originated in the reign of 
Louis XV., to colonize the Iroquois country, and 
wrest it from the power of the British crown. 
When this effort failed — replete as it was with 
wars, intrigues and embassies, battles and mas- 
sacres, which make it the heroic age of our his- 
tory — the persons who had become enlisted in 
the ritual observances of this church, were in- 
duced to withdraw from the body of the tribes, 
and settle on the banks of the St, Lawrence, in 
the area of the present county of St. Lawrence. 
It was, in effect, a missionary colony. Its mem- 
bers were mostly Mohawks, from Caughnawaga, 
with some Oneidas, and perhaps a few of the 
Onondagas, amongst whom there had been ca- 
tholic missions and forts established, at early 
dates. 

The exertions made to organize this new can- 
ton were, politically considered, at direct vari- 
ance with the colonial policy of New York, and 
were therefore opposed by the person entrusted 
by the crown with Indian affairs, and also by 



AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE. 115 

the councils of the confederacy. Those persons 
who composed it assimilated in faith, and almost 
as a necessary consequence, they soon did so in 
politics.* They went off in small parties, se- 
cretly, and after they had become embodied and 
located, they were regarded, in effect, as foreign 
Indians, and were never recognized or admitted 
to a seat in the confederacy. The feeling caused 
by this separation, among the tribes themselves, 
amounted to bitterness., and it is a feeling which, 
I had occasion to observe on one occasion, is 
not forgotten by the existing cantons even at 
this day. 

The St Eegis colony increased rapidly, but 
had some extra stimulants to promote its growth, 
its success being equally dear to the political 
and ecclesiastical policy of France. It became 
a thorn to the frontier towns and settlements of 
New England, during the whole of the old 
French war, so called, and of the American re- 
volution. Some of the forays of this band into 
the Connecticut valley were productive of 
thrilling and heart-rending events, as those must 
have realized who have had their youthful sym- 
pathies excited by narrations of the touching 
captivities of the Howes and the Williamses, of 
that valley. 

* Some exceptions to this existed. The noted chief called 
Col. Louis, who rendered the American cause such essential 
service, during the siege of Fort Stanvvix, in 1777, was of the 
St. Regis tribe, agreeably to information given to me, at 
Oneida Castle, the present year, by Abraham Dennie. 



116 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

When the 54° parallel came to be drawn, 
under the provision of the treaty of Ghent, it cut 
the St. Regis settlement unequally in two, leav- 
ing the church and the larger portion of the In- 
dian population within the bounds of Canada. 
Those who reside within the limits of New 
York, numbered two hundred and sixty souls 
in 1845. 



CHAPTER IV. 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE IROQUOIS 
LEitiUE. 



Objects of Research — Era of the' Confederacy — Princi- 
ples OF THEIR Government, and the Totemic Bond — An- 
cient Worship and System of Astronomy — Witchcraft 
and its Theory, and Practical Evils — Wife's Right to 
Property: Limited Nature of Marriage Contract — 
Idea of Vampyres : Traditions in reference to. 

Something on this head appears desirable, if 
it be only to mitigate, in some degree, our his- 
torical ignorance, and want of accurate or pre- 
cise information, touching it. The question of 
the principles of their social and political asso- 
ciation, is one of equal interest and obscurity, 
and would justify a more extended inquiry than 
is here given. 

Chronology finds its most difficult tasks in 
establishing dates among our aboriginal tribes. 
Pyrlaus, a missionary at the ancient site of Di- 
onderoga, or Fort Hunter, writing between 1742 
and 1748, states, as the result of the best con- 
jectures he could form, from information derived 
from the Mohawks, that the alliance took place 
"one age, or the length of a man's life, before 



118 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the white people came into the country."^ He 
gives the following as the names of the sachems 
of the Five Nations, who met and formed the 
alliance: Toganaivita, for the Mohawks; Otats- 
chechta, for the Oneidas; Tatotarho, for the On- 
ondagas; Togahaijon^ foi the Cayugas; Ganiatario 
and Satagaruyes, for the Senecas. 

The name of Thannawage is given as the first 
proposer of such an allMnce. He was an aged 
Mohawk sachem. It was decided that these 
names should forever be kept in remembrance, 
by naming a person in each nation, through 
succeeding generations, after them. 

Taking 1609, the era of the Dutch discovery, 
and estimating " a man's life," by the patriarchal 
and scriptural rule, we should not at the utmost 
have a more remote date than 1539,f as the 
origin of the confederacy. This would place 
the event eighteen years after the taking of 
Mexico by Cortes, and forty-seven years after 
the first voyage of Columbus. Cartier, who as- 
cended the St. Lawrence to Hochelaga, the pre- 
sent site of Montreal, in 1535, demonstrates 
clearly, by his vocabulary of words, that a peo- 
ple who spoke a branch of the Iroquois language, 
was then at the place. This people is usually 
supposed to have been the Wyandots or Hurons. 

* Trans. Hist, and Lit. Com. Am. Philo. Soc, vol. i., page 
36. 

t For other data on this topic, see the subsequent paper, in 
relation to the Onoiidagas, in which uu earlier dale is assigned. 
See also the article Oral Traditions. 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 119 

But he makes no remark on a confederacy. He 
only denotes the attachment of the people to an 
old and paralytic sachem, or head chief, who 
wore a frontlet of dyed porcupine's skin. 

Curious to obtain some clue to this era, or 
test of the preceding data, I made it a topic of 
inquiry. The Onondagas, the Tuscaroras, and 
the several bands, unite in a general tradi- 
tion of the event of a confederacy, at the head 
of which they place Atotarho, (the same doubt- 
less whose name is spelt Tatotarho above,) but 
amongst neither of these tribes is the era fixed. 
The dates employed by Cusick, the Tuscarora 
legendary, giving an extravagant antiquity to 
the confederation, are more entitled to the sym- 
pathy of the poet, than the attention of the his- 
torian, although other traditions stated by him 
debarring the dates, may be regarded as the ac- 
tual traditions of his tribe. Were the dates 
moderate, which he generally employs to confer 
antiquity on his nation, they might inspire re- 
spect. But, like the Chinese astronomers, he 
loses no little as a native archaeologist, by aspiring 
after too much. 

Atotarho, who by these traditions was an On- 
ondaga, is the great embodiment of Iroquois 
courage, wisdom and heroism, and in their nar- 
rations he is invested with allegoric traits, which 
exalt him to a kind of superhuman character. 
Unequalled in war and arts, his fame had spread 
abroad, and exalted the Onondaga nation to the 
highest pitch. He was placed at the head of 



120 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the confederacy, and his name like that of King 
Arthur of tlie Round Table, or those of the Pala- 
dins of Charlemagne, was used after his death 
as an exemplar of glory and honor ; while like 
that of Caesar, it became perpetuated as the offi- 
cial title of the presiding chief What is said 
by Pyrlaus respecting the mode of the transmis- 
sion of the names of the first delegates to the 
council forming the confederacy, appears to be 
probable. It is true, so far as is known, but it 
seems that not only the name of the ruling chief, 
but the title of each minor officer in the council, 
as he who presents the message, he who stands 
by the chief, or atotarho, &c., is preserved to this 
day, by its being the name of an individual who 
exercises a similar office. 

The best light I could personally obtain from 
tradition of the date of the event, namely, the 
era of the confederacy, came through a tradition 
handed down from Ezekiel Webster, an Ameri- 
can, who at an early day settled among the On- 
ondagas, learned their language, married the 
daughter of a chief, and became himself a man 
of great influence among them. Mr. Tyler, of 
Seneca Falls, son of one of the first settlers in the 
present county of Onondaga, informed me in a 
casual interview at Aurora, on the 13th of August, 
that his father had received this account from 
Webster's own lips, namely, that the confedera- 
tion, as related by the Onondagas, took place 
about the length of one man's life before the 
white men appeared. A remarkable confirma- 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 121 

tion of the statement of Pyrlaus."^ It must be 
admitted, however, that we cannot, without re- 
jecting many positive traditions of the Iroquois 
themselves, refuse to concede a much earlier pe- 
riod to the first attempts of these interesting 
tribes to form a general political association. 
For eighty years before the American revolu- 
tion, they, m friendly recommendation, held 
up their confederacy as a political model to 
the English colonies. {See Colden.) Their own 
first attempts to form themselves into one na- 
tion, may have borne the same relation to them 
and their subsequent condition as our early con- 
federation of states bears to the present union ; 
and this, instead of lasting a few years, as did 
ours, may have continued even for centuries, 
among so rude a people, before it could ripen 
into the bonds of empire. 

Two elementary powers existed at an early 
day in the Iroquois cantons, namely, the civil 
and war chieftainships. There is abundant evi- 
dence, both in their own traditions, and in exist- 
ing antiquarian remains, to show that they were 
at variance, in the early periods of their history, 
and fought against each other, and built fortifi- 
cations to defend themselves. Partial leagues 
would naturally fail. League after league proba- 
bly took place. When they came to see the 
folly of such a course, and proposed to confede- 

* A Seneca tradition which is hereafter noticed, places the 
event of the confederation four years before the appearance of 
Hudson in his ship, in the bay of New York. 
17 



122 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

rate on enlarged principles, and direct their 
arms exclusively against others, the question 
doubtless arose, how they should be represented 
in the general council. It is clear, from the pre- 
ceding remarks on the era of the confederation, 
whatever age we assign to the era itself, that 
the rakowanas, (Mohawk,) or leading chiefs of 
each of the five cantons, did not assemble. 
Power was assigned to, and concentrated on, one 
individual, who stood as the federal representa- 
tive of his canton in its sovereign capacity. It was 
only to the Senecas that two representatives, of 
this senatorial dignity, were assigned; a conclu- 
sive evidence that they were, at this era, esti- 
mated at double the numerical strength of the 
highest of the other four cantons. By these six 
men, who appear rather in the capacity of em- 
bassadors, forming the principles of a treaty, or 
league, the modern confederacy, as known to 
us, was organized. Tradition says that this 
treaty of alliance was held at Onondaga, where 
the central council fire of the confederacy, or- 
ganized under it, was also originally fixed, and 
has permanently remained. 

No one has attended to the operations of the 
Iroquois government and polity, as they are de- 
veloped in their councils and meetings for gene- 
ral consultation and action, without perceiving 
a degree of intricacy in its workings, which it is 
difficult to grasp. Or rather, the obscurity may 
be said to grow out of the little time and the 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 123 

imperfect opportunities which casual observers 
have to devote to the object. For, maturely 
considered, there is no inherent difficulty in the 
way. It seems clear that they came together 
as independent tribes, who, at an early age, had 
all proceeded from the same parental stock, but 
who, after an indefinite period of fightings and 
wars, became convinced of the short-sighted- 
ness of such a course, and fell on the plan of a 
confederation which should produce general ac- 
tion, and yet leave the several members free, 
both in their internal polity, and in the exercise 
of most of their co-tribal powers. It was clearly 
a confederation for common purposes of defence 
and offence, and not a perfect union. Each tribe, 
or more properly speaking, canton, was still go- 
verned by its own chiefs, civil and military. 
They came together in general councils, by 
sachems, exercising the power of delegates. 

These delegates or sages came in their heredi- 
tary or elective character, as the case might be, 
or as the customs and laws of the tribe, in its 
popular character, had decided. But their voices 
were in all cases, either prompted by prior ex- 
pressions of the warriors and wise men, or were 
to be ratified by these known powers. How- 
ever invested with authority, they but spoke the 
popular will. The relative power of the cantons 
is denoted, and appears as a question that was 
already settled, at the first formal general coun- 
cil for the purpose of confederating. For we 
there see precisely the same tribal representa- 



124 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

tion, which has obtained ever after and still pre- 
vails; that is to say, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, 
the Onondagas, and the Cayiigas, had each one 
chief, and the Senecas two, making six supreme 
dignitaries or state counsellors. That their pow- 
ers were merely advisory and interlocutory, and 
that they aimed to come to harmonious results, 
by the mere interchange of opinion, without any 
formal or solemn vote, is evident, from all that 
we know, or can gather from their still existing 
institutions. There appeared to have been no 
penalties — no forfeiture of rights — no binding 
or coercive power, to be visited on tribes or 
chiefs, beyond that of opinion. Popular disap- 
proval was the Iroquois penalty here and else- 
where. It is equally clear, however, that a 
single negative voice or opinion, was of the 
highest efficacy. A unanimous decision, not a 
decision on the majority principle, was required. 
The latter was a refinement, and an advance in 
polity, which they had not certainly reached, 
although they seem inclined now to follow it; 
and herein we may perceive the great power 
and efficacy of their old decisions. These de- 
cisions were, in their effects, clothed with all 
the power of the most full popular will. For 
what each of the senatorial chiefs or delegates, 
and all the cantons, pronounced proper, there 
was no one, in a patriarchal community, to lisp 
a word against. 

So little power was abstracted from each tribe, 
and conceded to the federative council as a fixed 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 125 

government, that it seems not without scrutiny, 
that we can perceive there is any. This is, how- 
ever, certain. One of the six primary sachems 
was selected to preside over the general councils. 
His power was, however, exclusively of a civil 
character, and extended but little beyond that 
of a moderator, but he was a moderator for life, 
or during the time he retained the right and full 
use of his faculties, or until just cause of dissat- 
isfaction should bring the question of a succes- 
sor before the council. This head officer, had 
also authority to light the council fire — that is 
to say, he could send messengers, and was, if so 
desired, bound to send messengers to assemble 
the general council. The act, and the symbol 
of the act, were both in his hands. He sum- 
moned the chiefs, and actually lit the sacred 
fire, at whose blaze their pijDcs were lighted. 
Thus limited, and having no other administra- 
tive power, but to appoint his own har-ijar-do-ah, 
aid or pipe-bearer, and messengers, he enjoyed 
his executive dignity ; but had little more power 
when the sessions were closed, than belonged to 
every leading chief of the component tribes. 
He was himself bound to respect the messages 
of the tribal chiefs, and receive the runners who 
were sent to him from the frontiers with news, 
and he thus performed merely and exactly the 
will of each tribe, thus expressed. He was 
never in advance of the popular will. The 
whole hereditary machinery was made subser- 
vient to this. And he was limited to the per- 



126 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

formance of these slender, and popular duties. 
He might, it is true, if a man of eloquence, 
talents, or bravery, be also the ruling civil chief 
of his tribe, and furthermore, its war captain in 
the field. And such is known to have actually 
been the character and standing of Atotarho, 
the first presiding chief in their federative coun- 
cils. He was a man of energy and high renown. 
And such was the estimation in which he was 
held in his life time, and the popular veneration 
for his character after death, that, as above de- 
noted, his name became the distinctive title for 
the ofiice. Thus much is preserved by tradi- 
tion, and the office and title of the atotarho, as 
presiding sachem, is not yet extinct, although 
the tribes have no longer wars to prosecute, or 
foreign embassadors to reply to. 

But how, it may be asked, is a government so 
purely popular, and so simple and essentially 
advisory in its character, to be reconciled with 
the laws of hereditary descent, fixed by the es- 
tablishment of heraldic devices, and bringing 
its proportion of weak and incompetent minds 
into office, and with the actual power it exer- 
cised, and the fame it acquired? To answer 
this question, and to show how the aristocratic 
and democratic principles were made to harmo- 
nize, in the Iroquois government, it will be 
necessary to go back, and examine the law of 
descent among the tribes, together with the cu- 
rious and intricate principles of the totemic bond. 

Nothing is more fully under the cognizance 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 127 

of observers of the manners and customs of this 
people, than the fact of the entire mass of a can- 
ton or tribe being separated into distinct chins, 
each of them distinguished by the name and 
device of some quadruped, bird, or other object 
in the animal kingdom. This device is called, 
among the Algonquins (where the same separa- 
tion into families or clans exists), totem, and we 
shall employ the term here, as being already well 
known to writers. Bat while the Algonquins 
have made no other use of it, but to trace con- 
sanguinity, or at least, remote affinities of fami- 
lies, and while they have also separated into 
wild independencies and tribes, who have as- 
sumed new tribal names, and wandered and 
crossed each other's track and boundaries in a 
thousand ways, the Iroquois have turned it to 
account by assuming it as the very basis of their 
political and tribal bond. How far fixity of ter- 
ritorial possession and proximity of location may 
have favored or led to the establishment of this 
new bond, need not be inquired into here; but, 
while we express no opinion favorable to the 
remote antiquity of their residence in the north, 
it must be evident that this tie would have lost 
all its binding force if the Alleghanies, the great 
lakes, or any other very wide geographical areas, 
had been interposed between them, and thus 
interrupted frequent and full intercourse and 
united action. A government wholly verbal, 
must be conceded to have required this proximi- 



128 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ty and nearness of access. The Senecas may 
be selected as an example of the influence of 
the totemic bond. This canton is still the most 
numerous of the existing Iroquois tribes. By 
the recent census, (see p. 102 ante,) they num- 
ber over two thousand four hundred souls. This 
population is, theoretically, separated into eight 
clans or original families, who are distinguished 
respectively by the totems of the wolf, the bear, 
the turtle, the deer, the beaver, the falcon, the 
crane and the plover. Theory at this time, 
founded doubtless on actual consanguinity in 
their inceptive age, makes these clans brothers. 
It is contrary to their usages that near kindred 
should intermarry, and the ancient rule inter- 
dicts all intermarriage between persons of the 
same clan. They must marry into a clan whose 
totem is different from their own. A wolf or 
turtle male cannot marry a wolf or turtle female. 
There is an interdict of consanguinity. By this 
custom the purity of blood is preserved, while 
the tie of relationship between the clans them- 
selves is strengthened or enlarged. 

But by far the most singular principle con- 
nected with totems, the sign manual of alliance, 
is the limitation of descent exclusively to the 
line of the female. Owing to this prohibition, a 
chieftain's son cannot succeed him in office, but 
in case of his death, the right of descent being 
in the chief's mother, he would be succeeded, 
not by one of his male children, but by his 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 129 

brother ;* or failing in this, by the son of his sis- 
ter, or by some direct, however remote, descend- 
ant of the maternal line. Thus he might be 
succeeded by his own grandson, by a daughter, 
but not by a son. It is in this way that the line 
of chieftainships is continually deflected or re- 
freshed, and family dynasties broken up. 

While the law of descent is fully recognized, 
the free will of the female to choose a husband, 
from any of the other seven clans, excluding 
only her own, is made to govern and determine 
the distribution of political power, and to fix the 
political character of the tribe. Another pecu- 
liarity may be here stated. The son of a chief's 
daughter is necessarily destined to inherit the 
honors of the chieftainship ; yet the validity of 
the claim must, on his reaching the proper age, 
be submitted to and recognized by a council of 
the whole canton. If approved, a day is appoint- 
ed for the recognition, and he is formally installed 
into office. Incapacity is always, however,^ 
without exception, recognized as a valid objec- 
tion to the approval of the council. 

Had this law of descent prevailed among the 
Jews, whose customs have been so often appealed 
to, in connection with our red race, neither 
David nor Solomon would ever have sat on the 
throne. It would be easy, did the purposes of 
this work require it, to show, by other references, 

* Thus Hendrick, who fell at the battle of Lake George, in 
1755, was succeeded, in the Mohawk canton, by his brother 
Abraham, and not by his son. 
18 



130 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the futility of the proofs, derived from the sup- 
posed coincidence of customs, which have been 
brought forward with so much learning, and so 
Uttle of tlie true spirit of research, to prove the 
descent of the American aborigines from that 
ancient and peculiar people. But if theorists 
have failed on this ground, what shall we say 
of that course of reasoning which lays much 
stress on the most slender evidences of nativity, 
in the instance of the great Mohawk sachem, to 
prove the superior chances of recurring talent in 
the line of hereditary descent, and the legitimacy 
of his actual claims to the chieftainship, on the 
score of paternal right ?'^ 

What was true of the totemic organization of 
the Senecas, was equally so of the Mohawks, 
and of each of the other cantons. Each canton 
consisted, like the Senecas, of the clans of the 
wolf, bear, turtle, beaver, deer, falcon, plover 
and crane. But each of these clans were incre- 
ments of reorganizations of one of the eight ori- 
ginal clans. They were brothers, and appealed 
to their respective totems as a proof of original 

* This remark is not made to depreciate the literary merits 
of the esteemed and lamented author of the Life of Brant, but 
as being simply due to the cause of truth. Few men have 
better earned the respect and remembrance of the public, than 
William L. Stone, whose whole life was an example of what 
energy and talunts can achieve. It was not, indeed, to be 
expected that the incessant duties of the diurnal press should 
permit historical scrutiny into a matter very obscure in itself, 
and of which the details are only to be gleaned after laborious 
search at remote points. 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 3 31 

consanguinity. They were entitled to the same 
rites of hospitality, in the lodges of their affiliated 
totems abroad, that they were entitled to^ at 
home. The affiliated mark on the lodge was a 
sufficient welcome of entrance and temporary 
abode. It results, therefore, that there were but 
eight original family clans, estimating at the 
maximum number existing in six cantonal de- 
partments, or tribes, and that the entire six tribes 
were bound together, politically, by these eight 
family ties. As a matter of course, each clan 
was not equally numerous in each tribe. This 
would depend on accidental circumstances and 
natural laws; but it is an argument in favor of 
the antiquity of the people, or the confederacy, 
that each of the tribes had organized in each of 
the respective clans. For we cannot suppose 
that at first there was a systematic, far less an 
equal division of the clans, or that their original 
separation into separate tribes, or cantons, was 
the result of a considerate formal public act. 
This would be to reverse the ordinary progress 
of tribes and nations who, in early ages, separate 
from circumstances and causes wholly casual, 
such as the ambition or feuds of chiefs, the de- 
sire of finding better places to live, easier means 
of subsistence, &c. 

In the condition of a people, living in a govern- 
ment so purely patriarchal, following game for 
a subsistence, and making wars to enlarge or 
defend their hunting grounds, the oldest and 
most respected man of his clan or totem, would 



1 32 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

necessarily be its sachem or political head. We 
must assume that to be a fixed and settled prin- 
ciple of their simple constitution and verbal laws, 
which appears, from all we know, to have been 
so. Letters, they had none, and their traditions 
on this head are to be gleaned from scattered 
and broken sources, which do not always coin- 
cide. 

If each clan had its leading sachem or chief, 
there were eight principal chiefs in each canton. 
Consequently, when the confederacy consisted 
of five cantons, there were forty rakowanas, (Mo- 
hawk,) or head chiefs. These were the recognized 
leaders and magistrates in the villages ; but in 
effect, in a community thus constituted, each 
rakowana or ruling chief of a clan, has a num- 
ber of aids, mishinawas, (Algonquin,) and minor 
officials, who were also regarded as semi-sa- 
chems, or chiefs. This number is always indefi- 
nite and fluctuating, but maybe supposed to be, 
in relation to the ruling rakowana, as at least 
five to one. This would give to each canton 
forty inferior chiefs, and to the five cantons, two 
hundred, denoting a distribution of power and 
civil organization, which, acting in union, must 
have been very efficacious; and the more so, 
when we consider that all their political move- 
ments were entirelyof a popular cast, and carried 
with them the voice of every man in the canton. 

This appears to have been the standing civil 
organization ; but it was entirely independent of 
the military system. War chiefs appear ever to 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 133 

have derived their authority from courage and 
capacity in v^^ar, and to have risen up as they 
were required in each canton. The iekarahogea, 
or war captain, founded his rights and powers 
in the Indian camp, on former triumphs and 
present capacity ; but the office does not appear 
to have been a general one, recognized by their 
constitution. All males were bound to render 
military service by custom and opinion, but by 
nothing else. Disgrace and cowardice were the 
penalties, but they were penalties more binding 
than oaths or bonds among civilized communi- 
ties, and always kept their ranks full. All war 
parties were, of course, volunteers. It seems 
that all able bodied males over fourteen, were 
esteemed capable of taking the war path ; the 
early development of martial power being con- 
sidered of all traits the most honorable. No title 
was more honored than that of roskeahragehie, 
(Mohawk,) or warrior. 

There was no baggage to encumber the march 
of an Iroquois army. The decision of Alexander 
and the policy of Bonaparte were alike unneces- 
sary here. Each Iroquois warrior supplied and 
carried his own arms and provisions. He joined 
the war dance, the analagous term for enlist- 
ment, for the particular expedition in hand. If 
it failed, or another force was required, other 
captains called for other volunteers, and sung 
their war songs to inflame the ardor of the young. 
Taunts and irony of the deepest character, were, 



134 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

on these occasions, flung at the character of the 
enemy. The war chief lifted his tomahawk as 
if actually engaged in combat, and in imagina- 
tion he stamped his enemy under foot, while he 
symbolically tore off his scalp, and uttered his 
sharp sasakwon, (Algonquin,) or war whoop 

If it be inquired why this people, with so com- 
paratively small a population, carried their wars 
to such an extent, and acquired, probably in no 
great time, so wide a sway and power over the 
other tribes of the continent, the reply will ap- 
pear, in a great measure, in this efficient Avar or- 
ganization. It may be said that other tribes had 
the same principles. But these eastern and 
western tribes had feeble or divided counsels. 
Each tribe was a sovereignty by itself, and their 
powers were tasked by home wars, without at- 
tempts at remote conquest. There is nothing 
to denote that the number of war chiefs was 
ever settled or fixed. Time and chance deter- 
mined this, as we observe it in the Algonquin 
and other American stocks. Fixity, in the num- 
ber of the civil chiefs, was indeed rather a theory 
than an actuality, and the number must have 
been perpetually fluctuating, according to obvi- 
ous circumstances. 

But while the theory of the Iroquois government 
thus distributed its powers between two classes 
of chiefs, one of which ruled in the council, and 
the other in the field, there was a third power 
of controlling influence in both, which respected, 



j.ii 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 135 

it is true, this ancient theory, but which annulled, 
confirmed, originated, or set aside all other power. 
I allude to the popular will as exercised by the 
warriors. Whatever was proposed, had to come 
under the voice of the armed men, who had the 
free right, at all times, to assemble in council, 
and put their approval or veto on every measure. 
Practically considered, a purer democracy, per- 
haps, never existed. The chiefs themselves had. 
no power in advance of public sentiment, or else 
it was their policy^ as we see it at this day, to 
express no such power, but rather to keep in 
abeyance of, or be the mere agents of, the popu- 
lar will. In all negotiations, such absolute 
power is disclaimed by them. Acting on prin- 
ciples of the highest diplomacy, they invariably 
defer general answers, until a reference can be 
had to the warriors or men. They risk nothing- 
by taking grounds in doubtful positions in ad- 
vance, and the consequence is that the results 
of most Indian councils are unanimous. 

There was yet a reserved power in the Iro- 
quois councils which deserves to be mentioned. 
I allude to the power of the matrons. This was 
an acknowledged power of a conservative cha- 
racter, which might, at all times, be brought into 
requisition, whenever policy required it. And 
it exists to-day as incontestibly as it did centu- 
ries ago. They were entrusted with the power 
to propose a cessation of arms. They were lite- 
rally peace-makers. A proposition from the ma- 



136 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

trons to drop the war club, could be made with- 
out compromiting the character of the tribe for 
bravery; and accordingly, we find, in the ancient 
organization, that there was a male functionary, 
an acknowledged speaker, who was called the 
representative or messenger of the matrons. 
These matrons sat in council, but it must needs 
have been seldom that a female possessed the 
kind of eloquence suitable to public assemblies ; 
and beyond this there was a sentiment of respect 
due to the female class, which led the tribes, at 
their general organization, to create this office. 

Councils, so organized, so perpetually and 
truly swayed by popular will, gave the greatest 
scope for eloquence. Eloquence, in the abori- 
gines, takes the place entirely of books and let- 
ters. It is the only means of acting on the 
multitude, and we find that it was, from the 
earliest times, strenuously and successfully cul- 
tivated by the Iroquois. By far the best and 
most abundant specimens of native eloquence 
we possess are from this stock. And their his- 
tory is replete in proofs that the chiefs employed 
it, not only in their internal affairs and negotia- 
tions, but in teaching their people to appreciate 
their rights and the principles of their govern- 
ment. 

Notices of the manner of holding a recent 
council of these cantons, called for the consi- 
deration of national questions, are given, in the 
miscellaneous items, appended to this work. 



ij 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 137 



It was a strikin^^ peculiarity of the ancient re- 
ligious system of the Iroquois that, once a year, 
the priesthood supplied the people with sacred 
fire. For this purpose, a set time Avas announced 
for the ruling priest's visit. The entire village 
was apprized of this visit, and the master of each 
lodge was expected to be prepared for this an- 
nual rite. Preliminary to the visit, his lodge 
fire was carefully put out and ashes scattered 
about it, as a symbolic sign of desolation and 
want. Deprived of this element, they were also 
deprived of its symbolic influence, the sustain- 
ing aid and countenance of the supreme power, 
whose image they recognized in the sun. 

It was to relieve this want, and excite hope 
and animation in breasts which had throbbed 
with dread, that the priest visited the lodge. 
Exhibiting the insignia of the sacerdotal office, 
he proceeded to invoke the Master of Life in 
their behalf, and ended his mission by striking 
fire from the flhit, or from percussion, and light- 
ing anew the domestic fire. The lodge was 
then swept and garnished anew, and a feast 
succeeded. 

This sacred service annually performed, had 

the effect to fix and increase the reverence of 

the people for the priestly office. It acted as a 

renewal of their ecclesiastical fealty ; and the 

consequence was, that the institution of the 

priesthood among these cantons was deeply and 

firmly seated. Whether this rite had anv con- 
19 



138 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

nection with the period of the solstices, or with 
the commencement of the lunar year, is not 
known, but is highly probable. That men liv- 
ing in the open air, who are regardful of the ce- 
lestial phenomena, should not have noted the 
equinoxes, is not probable. They must have 
necessarily known the solstices by the observa- 
tion of capes and mountains, which cast their 
shadows from points and describe angles so very 
diverse at the periods of the sun's greatest 
recession, or return. Yet we know not that 
the time of such extreme withdrawal and 
return marked and completed the circle of the 
year. Their year was, as in all the Algon- 
quin tribes, a lunar year. It consisted of twelve 
or thirteen moons, each of which is distinctly 
named. Thirteen moons of 28 days each, count- 
ing from visible phase to phase, make a year of 
364 days, or 12 moons of 30 days make up the 
old Persian year of 365 days, which is the great- 
est astronomical accuracy reached by the North 
American tribes. 

That the close of the lunar series should have 
been the period of putting out the fire, and the 
beginning of the next, the time of relumination, 
from new fire, is so consonant to analogy in the 
tropical tribes, as to be probable. 

The rite itself otters a striking coincidence, 
with that solemn performance at the close of 
each year, by the Aztec priests, in the valley of 
Mexico, and may not unreasonably be supposed 
to denote a common origin for the belief The 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 139 

northern tribes had, however, dropped from their 
ritual, if it ever was in that of their remote an- 
cestors, the horrid rite, so revolting in the Aztec 
annals, of human sacrifice. For although prison- 
ers were burned at the stake, this was not an 
act of the priesthood. It was a purely popular 
effervescence of revenge for losses of friends in 
war, or some other acts done by the enemy. 
Such sacrifices appeased the popular cry — all 
classes, young and old, rejoiced in them. They 
were looked on alone as an evidence of their 
nation's power; and by it the warriors also 
showed their regard for the relations of the be- 
reaved. The widow of the warrior dried her 
tears. The children rejoiced — they hardly 
knew why — it was the triumph of the nation. 
And they were thus educated to regard the pub- 
lic burning of prisoners as a proper and glorious 
deed. Women, indeed, rejoiced in it apparently 
more than men. It seemed a solace for the loss 
of their progeny. And all authors agree in at- 
tributing to the older females the most extrava- 
gant and repulsive acts of participation and re- 
joicing in these warlike rites. 

The belief in witchcraft prevailed extensively 
among the North American tribes. It is known 
that even in modern times, it was one of the 
principal means used by the Shawnee prophet 
to rid himself of his opponents, and that the 
venerable Shawnee chief, Tarhe, and others, 
were sacrificed to this diabolical spirit. 



140 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Among the Iroquois the belief was universal, 
and its effects upon their prosperity and popula- 
tion, if tradition is to be credited, were at times 
appalling. The theory of the popular belief, as 
it existed in the several cantons, was this. The 
witches and wizzards constituted a secret asso- 
ciation, which met at night to consult on mis- 
chief, and each was bound to inviolable se- 
crecy. They say this fraternity first arose 
among the Nanticokes. A witch or wizzard 
had power to turn into a fox or wolf, and run 
very swift, emitting flashes of light. They could 
also transform themselves into a turkey or big 
owl, and fly very fast. If detected, or hotly pur- 
sued, they could change into a stone or rotten 
log. They sought carefully to procure the 
poison of snakes or poisonous roots, to effect 
their purposes. They could blow hairs or worms 
into a person. 

While in Onondaga, James Gould, one of the 
original settlers on the Military tract, told me 
that he had been intimate with Webster, the 
naturalized Onondaga, who told him many 
things respecting the ancient laws and customs 
of this people. Amongst them there was a cu- 
rious reminiscence on the subject of witchcraft. 
Webster had heard this from an aged On- 
ondaga, whom he conversed with during a 
visit which he once made to Canada. This 
Onondaga said that he had formerly lived near 
the old church on the Kasonda creek, near 
Jamesville, where there was in old times a popu- 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 141 

lous Indian village. One evening, he said, 
whilst he lived there, he stepped out of his lodge, 
and immediately sank in the earth, and found 
himself in a large room, surrounded by three 
hundred witches and wizzards. Next morning 
he went to the council and told the chiefs of 
this extraordinary occurrence. They asked him 
whether he could not identify the persons. He 
said he could. They then accompanied him on 
a visit to all the lodges, where he pointed out 
this and that one, who were marked for execution. 
Before this inquiry was ended, a very large 
number of persons of both sexes were killed. 
He said "^ hundred. 

Another tradition says that about fifty persons 
were burnegl to death at the Onondaga castle for 
witches. 

The delusion prevailed among all the cantons. 
The last persons executed for witchcraft among 
the Oneidas, suffered about forty years ago. 
They were two females. The executioner was 
the notorious Hon Yost, of revolutionary memo- 
ry. He entered the lodge, according to a prior 
decree of the council, and struck them down 
with a tomahawk. One was found in the lodge ; 
the other suffered near the lodge door. 

Marriage among the Iroquois, appears to be a 
verbal contract between the parties, which does 
not affect the rights of property. Goods, per- 

* Having doubts, I omit to fill this blank. 



142 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

sonal effects, or valuables of any kind, personal 
or real, which were the wife's before, remain so 
after marriage. Should any of these be used by 
the husband, he is bound to restore the property 
or its worth, in the event of separation. It is not 
uncommon at present to find a husband indebted 
to a wife for moneys loaned of her, derived from 
payments or property, which she owned, and 
still owns, in her own right ; and it is a cause of 
union in some cases where, without this obliga- 
tion, a separation would probably ensue. 

Marriage is therefore a personal agreement, 
requiring neither civil nor ecclesiastical sanction, 
but not a union of the rights of property. De- 
scent being covinted by the female, may be either 
an original cause or effect of this unique law. 

The idea of the vampyre, among the Iroquois, 
I first noticed, although it is but half developed, 
in Cusick, who in his historical tract, (p. 30,) 
relates the incident of a man and his wife, and 
another person, taking shelter for the night, in 
a structure called the house of the dead. This 
scene is laid in the Oneida canton. After the 
light was extinguished, and they sought repose, 
a noise as if of a person gnawing was heard. 
The husband got up and rekindled the fire, and 
found that the flesh of one of the dead persons 
had been eaten by a ghost. This is Tuscarora 
authority. To test the superstition, I made in- 
quiries on the subject, in some of the other, 
cantons. There was found to be a popular belief 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 143 

in the idea of certain carnivorous ghosts, who 
eat the dead, among the Senecas, and it may be 
found to exist among the other tribes. It was 
still doubtful whether living persons were at- 
tacked, and if so, by sucking their blood in 
nocturnal visits. A well informed Seneca stated 
to me, that his people had numerous stories on 
this general head. He related one, in which a 
hunter and his wife, being belated and pushed 
by stress of weather, took shelter in a dead 
house. (This dead house appears to have been 
an ancient custom.) Having gone to repose, the 
wife was alarmed by sounds, resembling drink- 
ing and mastication, as if proceeding from some 
invisible source, very near her. She stirred the 
embers, and found the blood of her husband 
streaming over the ground. He was dead. He 
had been imperceptibly devoured in part, by a 
vampyre. She fled, but soon heard behind her, 
the war whoop of the ghost. The chase, the arts 
she resorted to, and her final escape, by entering 
a hollow log, and her deliverance thence, are 
minutely detailed. The approach of daylight, 
and the symbolical character of the ghost's war club, 
saved her. But the incidents are of no particu- 
lar interest here, except as serving to show the 
existence of this ancient superstition of the hu- 
man mind. 

Their belief on the subject is, that ghosts gorge 
themselves on the blood and flesh of both dead 
and living bodies, if the latter be asleep. Whe- 



144 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ther this is the disposition of all ghosts, or the 
power and propensity be confined to those of 
particular persons, who have been cannibals in 
life, or have otherwise come under the condem- 
nation of public feeling, is not known. It is 
believed, that such doomed spirits creep into 
the lodges of men at night, and during sleep 
suck their blood, and eat their flesh. They are 
invisible. Farther inquiries on this subject are 
required. Heretofore, Ave have heard much of 
witchcraft and necromancy among the North 
American Indians. The belief in these, appears 
to be universal. I know not a tribe, east or west 
of the Alleghanies, where it is not, or ivas not, 
formerly common. Transformations and the 
doctrine of metempsychosis, are equally com- 
mon. But hitherto, the horrid idea of the vam- 
pyre has not been noticed. It is a Greek idea, 
and contrary to the general traits of the Indian 
mind, and not of an Asiatic cast. 

The nations of Europe, who are most under 
the influence of this belief, in modern days, 
appear to be the Russians, Servians, Lithuanians, 
and modern Greeks. Have we then, an element 
in the Iroquois tribes, which we are to search 
for among the nations who anciently bordered 
on the Mediterranean? This favors the early 
and oft-repeated idea of a Phoenician element of 
population in the early constituents of our western 
hemisphere. If there be such an element, in 
the history of the past, it must, like all foreign 



EPOCH AND PRINCIPLES OF THE LEAGUE. 145 

intrusions of the kind, soon have gone down by 
amalgamation. Yet, if there be any tribe, in the 
whole ample range of America, who have mani- 
fested traits of Grecian firmness and association, 
it is the Iroquois. 



'20 



CHAPTER V. 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS OF THE 
IROQUOIS WITH THE OTHER NORTH AMERICAN 
TRIBES. 



War with an Ancient People called Alleghans — Lenno 
Lenapees, or Delawares — Cherokees, their History 
AND Language — Wyandots, and the Causes of their 
Separation — Eries — Adirondacks — Mohegans and Mun- 
sees, Manhattans and Metoacs — Ataavawas — Niper- 
cineans, or Algonquins Proper — Illinois, and their Con- 
geners — MiAMis, IN their Triune Division of Tribes — 
Chippewa, or Odjibwa Group, in their multiplied Bands 
AND Sub-Tribes — Shawnees — Susquehannocks — Powhat- 
TAN League on the Southern Atlantic Coasts — Cata- 

BAS MuSCOGEES AND APPALACHIANS ChOCTAWS Mus- 

QUAKEES AND SaUKS, AND MiNOR ALGONQUIN TrIBES OF LATE 

Origin — Owegungas, Abenakis, and New England 
Tribes generally. 

To detail the wars of the Iroquois with the 
other tribes and groups of tribes in North Ameri- 
ca, would be to write the history of the principal 
nations who, since our knowledge of the coun- 
try, have been located east of the Rocky moun- 
tains, and north of the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing 
of this kind is, in fact, thought of; but it appeared 
proper, in adverting to the former power and po- 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 147 

sition of this warlike confederacy of tribes, who 
have been, not inaptly, termed the Romans of 
the new world, to give a brief summary of the 
chief tribes, who, from time to time, disputed 
their supremacy, or incurred their ire. 

Judging from the monumental remains, in the 
shape of forts and tumuli, left in the land, there 
appear to have been extensive wars and com- 
binations of tribes, who battled for supremacy, 
both east and west of the Alleghanies, long ante- 
rior to our earliest knowledge of the country. 
"We should infer this from antiquarian evidence, 
were there no traditions, of any kind, lingering 
in the minds of the successors of these antique 
confederacies, at the earliest recorded dates. 
Such traditions were, however, to be found, in 
early relations of several of the leading tribes, 
north and south. One of the traditions of this 
kind, which appears to be entitled to general re- 
spect, and is sanctioned by remaining names, in 
the geography of the country, relates to a pow- 
erful and warlike nation, variously called, by 
different tribes, but who are best known, and 
may be well distinguished, among our antique 
tribes, as 

Alleghans. — This is the term which Golden 
preserves for them on the earliest map which 
accompanied his history, and it has attached it- 
self, in one of its modified forms, by early popu- 
lar usage, to the principal chain of mountains, 
which traverses the United States, east of the 
Mississippi, from south to north. Lenapee tra- 



148 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

dition (Vide Am. Philo. Trans. Hist, series) affirms 
that this ancient people were conquered and 
driven off, from their position in and ivest of the 
Alleghanies, by a league between themselves 
and the Iroquois. The question of the former 
military power and influence of the Alleghans, 
and the probability of their having erected the 
ancient forts and mounds in the western coun- 
try, is examined cursorily, under the head of 
Topical Inquiries, in a subsequent page. Mate- 
rials exist, in the geographical names of western 
Pennsylvania and New York, for denoting the 
probable spread of this people to the sources of 
several of the principal streams east of the Alle- 
ghanies ; but neither time nor space permit the 
pursuit of the inquiry here. 

Lenno Lenapees. — There is reason to acquiesce, 
to a certain extent, in both the claim to antiquity 
and their ancient position, in the great Algon- 
quin family, claimed by this people. It is be- 
lieved that there are no members of this generic 
family of tribes, certainly none of the existing 
tribes in the north and west, who are known to 
us personally, who do not acknowledge the an- 
cient Lenapees, under the title of grandfather. 
Even the Cherokees, who are not of this group of 
languages, bestow the same title on them, if the 
information recently derived from a person* well 
acquainted with their language and customs, be 
correct. The political relations of the Iroquois 

*Mr. Wheeler, a brother-in-law of the chief Sta?id Watie. 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 149 

to this people, whose descendants are known to 
us, in modern times, under the name of Dela- 
wares, appear to hav^e been intimate, at an an- 
cient era. At what period they changed their 
relations with them, from allies to conquerors, 
and under what circumstances, are unknown, 
at least on authority which carries with it much 
weight. The idea put forth by the modern Dela- 
wares, that they had voluntarily assumed the atti- 
tude of peace-makers, and relinquished the war 
cry and battle lance, and thus been, as it were, 
"beguiled" into the condition of a conquered 
people, may be one that had the power to please 
a Delaware ear, under the mortification of de- 
feat or humiliation ; but is contrary to all known 
principles in the rise or fall of tribes and nations, 
and unworthy of historical credence. That they 
ceded to William Penn the lands on the banks 
of the Lenapiwehittuk, on which Philadelphia 
now stands, is matter of undisputed record, as 
well as some other cessions of lands within the 
geographical area of Pennsylvania. But it. is 
seen, by the treaties concluded at Lancast^r^ 
which are preserved in Golden, that cessions of 
a subsequent date, were considered invalid with- 
out the assent of the Iroquois, and that the latter 
claimed and exercised the power to confirm or 
disannul such territorial cessions. They spoke 
and acted with a degree of pride and arrogance, 
in those councils, which nothing but conscious 
power, and long-admitted supremacy could have 
induced the Delawares, brave and expert as they 



150 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

were as warriors, to submit to. That they had 
fallen under the Iroquois power, prior to the set- 
tlement of the English colonies, is evident. No 
battles between them are recorded to have taken 
place, after the earliest plantations were made, 
but the rupture was still open when the Dutch 
built fort Orange, on the Hudson, for they used 
their utmost influence to bring about a perma- 
nent pacification in the noted convocation of the 
two parties, which assembled on the waters of 
the Tawasentha, near that fort, about 1630. It 
is believed that this treaty of amity was faith- 
fully kept, ever afterwards, by both Delawares 
and Iroquois. And it is probable that the Dela- 
ware tale of peace-makers, which has been al- 
luded to, as calculated to sooth their pride, was 
based on this general convocation. 

Mohegans, Munsees, Manhattans, Metijacs, and 
other affiliated tribes and bands of Algonquin 
lineage, inhabited the banks of the Hudson 
and the islands, bay and seaboard of New York, 
including Long Island, during the early periods 
of'the rise of the Iroquois confederacy. 

We may take the opening of the 16th century, 
as the period to examine the state of this ques- 
tion. Materials for the earlier eras of it, exist in 
the publications of Van Der Donck and other 
Dutch writers, which are to be found in the li- 
braries of Holland. The manuscript records of 
Beaverwyck and New Amsterdam, abound also 
in minor and illustrative particulars. Much has, 
doubtless, been lost by the sale of the papers of 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 151 

the Dutch West India Company in Holland in 
1820. The documents rescued by Mr. Brodhead, 
the historical agent of New York, and now de- 
posited in the secretary of state's office, at 
Albany, may be profitably examined. Other 
sources of information, snch as the .early mis- 
sionary journals of the period, may throw fur- 
ther light on the period. 

The Mohawks, who, in the symbolic language 
of the natives, stood at the eastern door of the 
confederacy, were the chief agents in carrying 
the Iroquois conquests towards the sea coast. 
From their two most southerly positions, the 
ancient towns of Origonewantel, the Mohawk 
riv(!r, and Tawasentha, on the Hudson, they 
pushed their conquests to the bay and islands of 
New York. The tribes, on both banks of the 
Hudson, shrank before their war cry. They in- 
vaded the little independent tribes of the Meto- 
acs on Long Island. They put the Connecticut 
and Massachusetts tribes in terror. They laid 
the Manhattans and their allies under the annual 
tribute of a quantity of shells suitable for wam- 
pum — the most valuable article in the ex- 
changes of the natives — the native coin, in fact, 
of the new world. The period is one of much 
interest. We have the record of many battles 
and ambuscades, on the Hudson and its waters. 
The Mohegans finally retired over the highlands 
east of them into the valley of the Housatonic. 
The Munsees and Nanticokes retired to the Dela- 
ware river, and reunited with their kindred, the 



152 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Lenapees, or modern Delawares. The Manhat- 
tans, and numerous other bands and sub-tribes, 
melted away under the influence of liquor, and 
died in their tracks. While their natural re- 
sources of game failed, they were inadequate 
to commence the arts of agriculture, and fell, 
the double victims of inanity and the love of al- 
cohol. They possessed courage, but were weak- 
ened by internal divisions. It was on the terri- 
tories held by them, that European population 
first and chiefly pressed; and they felt their 
power and population sink more surely and fully 
under the evils, resulting to them, from a higher 
type of civilization in the intruding race, than 
from the Iroquois war club and scalping knife. 

Adirondacks. — This is a term bestowed by the 
Iroquois, in derision, on the tribes who appear, 
at an early day, to have descended the Utawas 
river, and occupied the left banks of the St. Law- 
rence, above the present site of Quebec, about 
the close of the 15th century. It is said to sig- 
nify men who eat trees, in allusion to their using 
the bark of certain trees for food, when reduced 
to straits, in their war excursions. The French, 
who entered the St. Lawrence from the gulf, 
called the same people Algonquins — a generifc 
appellation, which has been long employed and 
come into universal use, among historians and 
philologists. 

According to early accounts, the Adirondacks 
had preceded the Iroquois in arts and attain- 
ments. They were expert hunters, and brave 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 153 

and enterprising warriors. They had spread 
wide over the northern latitudes and longitudes, 
and by the force of affiliation, assumed the po- 
litical condition of confederates. In this view 
they forestalled the Iroquois, and it is clearly to 
this people that the Tuscarora archaeologist, Cu- 
sick, alludes, in speaking of an ancient northern 
confederacy. Even after the first settlement of 
the Canadas, they were a thorn in the sides of 
the Nodowas, as they called the Iroquois, and by 
such incursions as those of the indomitable Pis- 
karet, they carried terror into the territories of 
their still but imperfectly miited cantons. Such, 
at least, are the accounts of the early French 
writers, which are, essentially, adopted by Col- 
den, the best English colonial historian of the 
Iroquois. 

The term Algotiquin applies to a very wide 
circle of tribes, east, west, horth and south, of 
the point on the banks of the St. Lawrence above 
denoted. While the French missionaries be- 
stowed it on a remnant of the valley race, whom 
they gathered together at the Lake of Two 
Mountains on the Utawas, writers, traders, and 
missionaries at large, extended it to all tribes on 
the North American continent who spoke the 
same generic language, although it differed con- 
siderably, at remote points, in idioms. Thus, all 
the native languages in INew England, except 
the Abenaki, were types of the Algonquin ; and 
the farthest tribes of the Illinois and the lakes, 
21 



l54 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOTS. 

were found to be of the same stock. The Iro- 
quois term of Adirondack extended generally to 
all those tribes against whom they warred as 
enemies, although the events of these wars gave 
them specific names for particular branches of 
them, as the Chictagahs, Twightwies, &c., &c. 

Owegungas. — Under this name the Iroquois 
denoted the Abenakis, Micmacs, and Etchemens, 
who occupied portions of Maine, and the por- 
tions of the northern Atlantic coasts, embracing 
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine. 

Shawnees. — After the defeat of this tribe by the 
Cherokees, while they dwelt on the Savannah 
river in Georgia and South Carolina, they were 
received in the north by their kinsfolk and allies, 
the Lenapees or Delawares, and became involved 
in a war with the Iroquois. Expert, proud, war- 
like and cruel, they drew upon themselves the 
epithet of Satanas, by which they became known 
to the Dutch of New Amsterdam. In this war. 
Golden informs us that the Iroquois prevailed, 
w^hich inspired them with fresh courage against 
the Adirondacks of the north. Whatever ef- 
fects this defeat had on the position or num- 
bers of the Shawnees, the latter, however, pre- 
served their nationality, and continued to form 
one of the elements of opposition which the Iro- 
quois found in the tribes west of the AUeghanies. 
They were seated, at an early date, in the area 
of country embracing the Cumberland and Ten- 
nessee rivers, and, together with the Choctaws, 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 155 

were the efficient cause of keeping tlie Iroquois 
war parties north of the banks of the Kanawha 
river. 

Eries. — French authorities give us the year 
1653 for the outbreak of the final war with this 
tribe. They give us to understand, also, that 
they were an affiliated people. The question 
is, cursorily, examined under the head of Topi- 
cal Inquiries. 

Susquehannocks. — Philology furnishes data for 
believing that this small tribe spoke the language 
of the Alleghans. This idea is quite reconcilable 
to the known ire of the Iroquois against them. 
By an expression in one of the printed speeches 
made at a treaty at Lancaster, (vide ColdenJ 
the Susquehannocks were exterminated by the 
Six Nations, and, in their symbolical language, 
"their fire put out," while they lived on the 
Susquehannah river. 

Massawomacs. — By this term the Iroquois de- 
nominated the confederacy of Powhattanic tribes 
in Virginia. The course which the early Five 
Nations pursued in their wars with the Catabas 
and Cherokees, was to keep the elevated ranges 
of the AUeghanies. They sometimes encoun- 
tered the A'^irginia tribes east of these mountains, 
but they only claimed jurisdiction over the lands 
along the Ohio, lying west. The war against 
the soLithern Indians, was, indeed, rather a war 
of scouting parties, and partisans, than of large 
bodies of warriors. And these small parties 
owed their success, in no small degree, to the 



156 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

fewness of their numbers, who could thus the 
more easily escape detection. 

Catabas. — Of this tribe, who were one of the 
most determined southern enemies of the Iro- 
quois, but few remain. On the settlement of 
South Carolina, they are represented as being 
capable of mustering fifteen hundred warriors, 
which, by the same moderate principles employ- 
ed to denote the strength of the Iroquois, would 
give them a population of about 7,000 souls. 
They appear to have been known in early days, 
by the term of Flatheads. They bore a high 
character among their enemies, for daring and 
subtil art. With the Carolinians, however, they 
appear to have formed early and lasting relations 
of friendship ; they were confederates with them 
in their war against the Tuscaroras, and after- 
wards against the Cherokees. The single ex- 
ception to this remark, is furnished by their 
joining the general league of tribes against the 
Carolinians in 1715, but this was a very short 
war, and they ever afterwards remained at peace 
with the colonists. 

They have dwindled away, for a long period, 
rather from the use of ardent spirits, and the 
native antipathy to labor, than from early wars. 
From facts stated to me, in conversation with 
Gen. James A. Black, of North Carolina, they 
had, in 1845, dwindled down to about sixty 
souls. This tribe had formerly reserved fifteen 
square miles of land, in that state, which they 
were in the habit of leasing to white occupants, 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 157 

for the term of ninety-nine years. The system 
turned out a bad one for them, and objection- 
able in other respects. The legislature finally 
purchased the tract, and gave them a perma- 
nent annuity of $2,500, which divides, at this 
time, over $40 per annum, per capita. 

There are analogies between the Cataba and 
Muscogee languages, which deserve attention. 

Cherokees. — The traditions of the Cherokees, 
respecting the ancient wars between them and 
the Iroquois, as related to me by the chief Stand 
Watie, in 1846, form a perfect counterpart to 
those of the Iroquois, on the same subjects. It 
was a perpetual war of individual exploits, and 
the parties seldom came into contact in large 
parties. The journey itself Avas so long, that large 
parties were subject to be discovered, and in dan- 
ger of starvation. Individual Cherokees often 
traversed the entire route to western New York, 
to strike a blow, or retaliate a foray. Many inci- 
dents of such exploits are yet remembered, al- 
though he remarks, that the present number of 
persons who have traditions of their early history 
is but few, and fast diminishing. The whole 
nation has been so long and essentially engaged 
in the arts of peace and civilization, that their 
early traditions have become faint, or are for- 
gotten. 

One of the most prominent of their traditions 
of a public nature still retained is, according to 
Watie, the formation of an extensive alliance 
and general peace, among the southern and 



158 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

western tribes. In this alliance, the Iroquois 
themselves figure, as proposers, by a delegation, 
of the measure. Extensive invitations were given 
by the Cherokees to the tribes around ; and after 
some delays, the alliance was entered into by 
all the tribes south and west, but the Osages. 
Hence it was said that the Osages shotdd be like 
a wild fruit tree on the prairies, which every 
bird should pick at ; and they have remained to 
our day, a predatory tribe. 

This general alliance, to which, however, we 
have no date, put a stop to the Cherokee and 
Iroquois wars. Thus far Watie. 

The language of this nation, although gene- 
rally and fundamentally different froiTi the Iro- 
quois, has yet some affinities with the Mohawk. 
The words fire, pipe, cow, fox, flint, &c., have, ap- 
parently, the same radices. A horse they call by 
the name of pack, as the first animal of this kind 
they ever saw, was packed, carrying goods into 
their country. They first traded with the Span- 
ish at St. Augustine, Florida. Philadelphia they 
call Canastoga. Americans they call by a name 
which signifies Virginians — the first men of this 
race, they ever saAv, being Virginians. The 
Mississippi river they call by a name which de- 
notes Falling-in-hanks. The ancient Lenni Le- 
napees, or Delawares, they call, like the Algon- 
quins generally, by the title of grandfather. They 
speak of long wars with the Six Nations, with 
the Shawnecs, and with the Creeks. The latter 
they call Coosa, which means a creek or stream. 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 3 59 

The following names, in this language, convey 
some idea of its rythmatic flow, in combination. 
Unicau is the Cherokee name of White river, in 
Arkansas and Missouri. It signifies a white 
river. It was to the banks of this stream that 
the first western Cherokee emigrant removed, 
from the body of the eastern Cherokees. I found 
them, in this position, in the year 1818. The 
same name, with a slight change of inflection, 
had been anciently applied by them to a white- 
capped mountain in Mississippi, which the pre- 
sent inhabitants of the region have accommo- 
dated to the sound of Unicorn mountain. In this 
manner a significant aboriginal name is some- 
times perverted. Amacalola is the name of a pic- 
turesque waterfall on the river Etowah, in the 
ancient area of the Cherokees, in Georgia. The 
signification of the word, in this language is, tum- 
bling ivater, from ama, water, and calola, sliding, 
rolling, or tumbling. The volume of water is not 
great, unless in flood, but the fall is thought to 
be the highest in the Union. It is seen in pass- 
ing on the turnpike road from Dahlongea to the 
Tennessee line. Tah-loo-lah, a water fall of the 
river of the same name, sixty miles east of Ama- 
calola, where the stream, which is one of tolerable 
size, is suddenly pitched into a chasm of the 
rock. The rock seems to have bee^i rent asun- 
der by some geological convulsion. To the 
lovers of the sublime it is a fine prospect. The 
etymology of the name is not certainly known. 
It appears from a Cherokee lady to have been 



160 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

derived from the precipitation of a child over 
the falls, whose body was suddenly and unex- 
pectedly seen in the smooth water below. Ac- 
cording to this incident, it means, "There lies 
your child." Chatanooga, a town on the Ten- 
nessee river, which is the proper terminus of 
the rail road from Charleston, South Carolina, 
and when completed, will connect the Atlantic 
and Mississippi valley, for transportation pur- 
poses. Dahlongea, a town selected as the site of 
a branch mint of the United States, in Georgia. 
The word is Cherokee, and means, place of gold. 

In mentioning to Mr. Calhoun the objects of 
my inquiries among the Cherokees and southern 
Indians, in the summer of 1846, he remarked, 
that the tradition of the south, as given by aged 
gentlemen whom he names, is, that the Shaw- 
nees came from Sawanee river, in Florida, and 
that their first remove was to the banks of the 
Savannah. At this position they became in- 
volved in a war with the Cherokees. The 
Cherokees prevailed after a long and sanguinary 
contest, and drove the Shawnees north. This 
event they cherish as one of their proudest 
achievements. "What!" said an aged Chero- 
kee chief, to Mr. Barnwell, who had suggested 
the final preservation of the race by intermar- 
riage with the whites, " What ! shall the Chero- 
kees perish ! Shall the conquerors of the Shaw- 
nees perish! Never!" 

Mr. Calhoun observed that the Catabas Avere 
the fast friends of the whites. That they were 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIOxVS. 101 

confederates, with the Cherokees, against the 
Senecas and their allies. That the Senecas had 
conquered the country as far south as Seneca Old 
Town, or Fort Hill, the present site of his planta- 
tion, in South Carolina. From this position they 
were finally driven. This tradition tallies with 
what the Senecas told Gov. De Witt Clinton, 
(vide N. Y. His. Col.) that they had lived in the 
Cherokee country. 

Mr. Calhoun further remarks, that the Creeks 
are called western Indians : that they came later 
than the Utchees, whom they conquered, and 
incorporated with themselves. The Utchees 
have an older language, which no one, it is said, 
can or has been able to obtain. 

There is a historical fact, in the history of the 
Cherokee outbreak against the Americans, at 
the era of the revolutionary war, which has been 
generally overlooked. The Cherokees had fur- 
nished allies to the army destined to act against 
fort Du Quesne. On their return home, many 
of the Cherokees were fired upon and killed by 
the Virginians, who carried on a fierce frontier 
war with the Shawnees and Delawares; and 
who did not discriminate between them and the 
Cherokees. This furnished the first cause of 
offence, which was aggravated by severe mea- 
sures on the Carolina frontiers, and finally led to 
the expedition which Gen. Montgomery conduct- 
ed successfully against them. 

Quatoghies. — This nation is the Hurons of the 
French. They call themselves Wyandots, in 
22 



162 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

which they are followed by modern usage. The 
Wyandots have always assumed to have been 
originally at the head of the Iroquois group of 
tribes. They profess, indeed, in an original tra- 
dition which is preserved in Oneota, (p. 207,) 
to have been honored with the precedence as a 
tribe, in elder ages, and in a wider circle of 
nations. Whatever reliance may be placed on 
this tradition, or any part thereof, they are con- 
fessedly one of the leading branches of our elder 
North American stocks, and their traditions are 
worthy of record. 

In mentioning the name of this tribe to Mr. 
J. C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, he said, that 
when at college at New Haven, in 1802, a Mr. 
Williams, a respectable and intelligent man, a 
half Wyandot, and a person interested in Ihe 
land claims of Connecticut in Ohio, informed 
him, that the old forts in the Ohio valley, were 
erected some 150 or 200 years before, in the 
course of a long war which was carried on be- 
tween the Wyandots (this I think, to tally with 
other traditions, should be Iroquois,) and the 
Cherokees. In this war, the northern confede- 
rates finally prevailed.- 

This tradition is important as bearing on the 
origin and history of the old western fortifica- 
tions, wliicli were found in ruins, at the period 
of the first settlement of the Ohio valley, and 
overgrown by the forest. The era denoted is 
believed, howevc^r, to be too recent, and it may 
be supposed that the parties engaged were, re- 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 163 

spectively, of a confederated character. Single 
tribes could not carry on a war, of this character, 
without involving their neighbors. Delaware 
tradition denotes an ancient combination be- 
tween the Iroquois and themselves, for the pur- 
pose of driving a formidable foe from that valley, 
who had spread himself into the spurs of the 
northern AUeghanies. I have long been aware 
of the analogy which exists between the name 
of Tallageewy, which the Lenapees are said to 
have bestowed on this ancient toe, and the 
modern name of Tsallakee, which the Chero- 
kees give to themselves. In visiting the dwell- 
ings of the Six Nations in 1845, I found that they 
called the Cherokees, not Tallageewy, as the 
modern Delawares report, {see Heckewelder,) 
but Oivaudali, or a people who live in caves. 
It is still to be replied, that the name commented 
on, purports to be a Delaware term for this 
ancient people, and not Iroquois. The tradition 
of Mr. Williams is, at least, interesting, and de 
serves due consideration in any future examina- 
tion of the subject. From the verbal traditions 
of Mr. Stand Watie, the Cherokees anciently 
lived at the Otter Peaks in Virginia — a noted 
point in the Alleghany group, which can be seen 
far — and they were in the habit of crossing the 
Ohio, with their war parties. Thus far at least, 
then, they are traced northwardly and west- 
wardly, from their late position in Georgia and 
Alabama, and it is a fact which favors, rather 
than otherwise, the Wyandot tradition. 



164 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

The Mr. Williams, who is noticed, understood 
the principles of the Wyandot language well, 
and proposed to have written a grammar of it. 
He spoke of the well known advantages of the 
native languages in their power of combination. 
You say, said he, the sun rises — the branch bends — 
we express each term by a single word. It is to 
be regretted that Mr. Williams has not, so far as 
is known, executed his intention as to the prepa- 
ration and publication of a Wyandot grammar. 

With regard to the war carried on by the; 
Iroquois against their brothers, the Wyandots, 
from the time of the alliance of the latter with 
the Algonquins, in the St. Lawrence valley, 
it was of the most desperate, bloody, and un- . 
relenting character. After defeating them ut- 
terly on the St. Lawrence, and driving them 
from their ancient site of Hochelaga and its 
precincts, the Wyandots fled, along with the 
^Atawawas, or modern Otto was, to the Manitou- 
Ji^ine chain of islands, in the lake since called, 
in allusion to this migration, by their French 
name, Huron. They next occupied the island of 
Michilimackinac, thinking its isolated position 
and precipitous cliffs would prove a shelter. But 
tlie enraged enemy drove them thence. They 
fled into the territories of the Odjibwas in Lake 
Superior. But even there, their enemies at- 
tempted to follow them, until they were defeated 
by the Chippewas, in a battle fought at the foot 
of the south cape of its outlet, at a prominent 
elevation, which, in allusion to this incident, is 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 165 

still called Point Iroquois. The Indians call it, 
Na-do-wa-gun-ing, that is, place of the Iroquois 
bones. The incidents of this war are the most 
stirring and sanguinary of any which has been 
carried on between Indian tribes, within the 
period of the discovery and settlement, and if 
selected out, and set in order, would afford one 
of the most curious and striking chapters in our 
Indian history. 

Of the original causes of the feud and separa- 
tion of the Wyandots from their affiliated tribes, 
Father le Jeune gives the best and fullest account. 

Twightwies. — This is the term bestowed by 
the Iroquois upon the Miamies. Miami is an Al- 
gonquin term, of which the precise meaning has 
not been stated. It is written agreeably to 
French principles of orthography, which were 
prevalent at the era of the discovery and settle- 
ment of Canada. The term bestowed by the 
Miamies upon themselves, is, Twali ! Tioah! 
being an attempt to imitate the cry of the crane, 
while in flight, and passing in the air, high over 
a village. Such is the etymology of the word, 
as given by the late noted chief Pec/to, or Rich- 
ard ville.* That the Iroquois term as given 
above is an embodiment of the same idea, or 
sound, as falling on their ears, is also probable. 
How near are the sounds of Twali-twah and 
Twigh-tivie to the original, and to each other? 
What analogy have they to the Seneca term Kah- 
kwa/i, the present term of that tribe for an ancient 

* Rev. John F. Schermerhorn. 



166 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

people whom they expelled from western New 
York, and who are supposed by some to be the 
same with the Ererions, or Eries? We may 
proceed from small and single facts to deeper 
inquiries. Etymology may not always be a safe 
guide, but in a class of languages so peculiar as 
the Indian, it is a species of research entitled to 
respect. The inquiry as to the fate of the Eries 
is equally obscure and interesting. Enough is 
manifest to denote that they were not extermi- 
nated by that war. Seneca tradition detailed in 
another part of these papers shews conclusively 
that the Kah-kwahs were defeated and driven 
off, making their escape down the Alleghany, 
partly by their superior dexterity in deceiving 
and eluding their pursuers. 

That the Twah-twahs were objects of the 
hatred and attacks of the Iroquois, during their 
residence on the Miami of the lakes, and the 
Miami of the Ohio, is well known. According 
to the French missionary authors, they fell on 
the Miamies and Chictaghicks or Illinois, who 
were intimate allies, and were encamped to- 
gether on the banks of the Maumee river in the 
year 1680, being twenty-five years after the final 
defeat of the Eries in western New York. In 
this attack they killed thirty and took three 
hundred prisoners. But the Illinois and Miamies 
rallied, and by a dexterous movement, got ahead 
of the retreating Iroquois, waylaid their path, 
and recovered their prisoners, killing many of 
the enemy. (Charlevoix. La Honlan.) As the 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 167 

Miamies are, however, ethnologically of the 
great Algonquin family, this enmity is no proof 
of any alliance or connection with the Eries. 
The Iroquois pursued all the members of the 
Algonquin stock with unrelenting fury. The 
declaration of Le Moine in 1653, denotes clearly, 
that the Eries were neither Algonquins ncr 
Hurons. That they were of the generic type of 
the Iroquois, seems the most probable conjecture. 
The tradition of the Tuscaroras, as stated by 
Cusick, affirm a kindredship. The elder mis- 
sionary fathers also speak of the Eries as a con- 
federacy of a language cognate with the Iroquois. 
They give their villages, and separate locations. 
The only people, of kindred stock, whom the 
Iroquois are certainly known to have driven 
west, are the Qaaghtogies. Are we then to look 
to the descendants of these, in the west, for the 
defeated Kah-kwahs? 

The Miamies rendered themselves conspicu- 
ous, after the close of the American revolution, 
and during Gen. Washington's administration, 
for their hostility to the United States. At suc- 
cessive periods, they defeated the armies under 
Harmer and St. Clair, and only yielded to the 
superior caution, intrepidity and perseverance of 
Gen. Wayne. During the first treaties made 
with them, there appeared, to their chiefs and 
leading counsellors, an advantage in their being 
recognized by the United States, under three 
separate divisions, and this is the true cause why 
we have ever since treated with portions of the 



168 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

very same tribe, under the name of Weas, and 
Piankashaws, as well as Miamies. Mr. Wells, 
who married the sister of the celebrated Miami 
chief. Little Turtle, is understood to have been 
conspicuous in this separation, and triorganiza- 
tion of the tribe, whose pecuniary inter.ests with 
the government have, ever since, been kept 
separate. 

Mississagies. — This tribe derive their name from 
their former residence on the waters of a river, 
which enters the north shores of Lake Huron, 
between Point Tessalon and La Cloche. The 
term is a purely geographical one, and means, 
literally, the big month — a characteristic fea- 
ture of the said river. So little do the names 
of tribes often furnish to denote the lineage of the 
people. The Mississagies are of the Algonquin 
stock, and near akin, indeed, to one of the 
original tribes of this stock of the French era, 
namely, the Nepissings. The latter, like the 
former, affords no clue to lineage at all. It de- 
notes the idea of people of the icater. 

Chippewas. — This widely scattered and nume- 
rous people, the Odjibwas of the north, and the 
Saulteur of the French, are of the true Al- 
gonquin type and language. They appear to 
have come into contact first with the Iroquois, in 
their lake position, by the shelter they afforded to 
the flying Wyandots. The principal event the]'- 
refer to, in their traditions of that period, is the 
decisive defeat which they gave to a large war 
party of Iroquois, at Point Iroquois, at the outlet 



EARLY WARS AND POLITICAL RELATIONS. 1G9 

of Lake Superior. That the Iroquois warriors 
should have extended their war parties to this 
remote point, as well as the extreme points of 
their inroads and forays on the Illinois, the Miami, 
the Ohio, as well as the country of the Chero- 
kees and Catabas, the bay of Chesapeake, the 
coasts of the Atlantic north to New England, 
and the river and gulf of St. Lawrence, is at 
once a proof of the extraordinary power and 
vigor of this indomitable race. Nor could we, 
indeed, follow historically the track of these war 
parties, without extending these hasty notes into 
a history, and embracing every North American 
tribe of any consequence. 

The Odjibwas have some traditions of the 
deluge, and affirm that they came from the east. 
They had an institution of fire-worship, and re- 
garded the sun as the symbol of the Great Spirit. 
They have many imaginative tales of giants, 
dwarfs and spirits, and also of witches, necro- 
mancers and sorcerers ; and weave up wild stories 
of the lives of men, with these supernatural 
influences. They have a soft and copious lan- 
guage, which appears, originally, to have con- 
sisted of a limited stock of generic particles, or 
syllables, mostly monosyllables, which have been 
compounded and employed, so long, in their 
concrete state, that the Indian speakers cannot 
now separate them, or give the elementary equiva- 
lent for these original roots; while it is evident 
that they have retained the full meanings of 
these ancient stock particles. 
23 



CHAPTER VI 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



Vestiges of an Ancient French Fort in Lenox — Ancient 
Site of the Onondagas at Kasonda — Antiquities of 
PoMPEY, Manlius and Camillus — Ancient Fort of Osco 
at Auburn — Vestiges of an Ancient Elliptical Work 
AT Canandaigua — FoRT HiLL, Genesee County — EocK 
Citadel of Kiejnuka, Niagara County — Circular Fort 
AT Deoseowa, Erie County. 

In considering the subject of American an- 
tiquities, it may facilitate the object to erect 
separate eras of occupancy, to which the facts 
may be referred. Such a division of the great 
and ahnost unknown period, which preceded the 
arrival of Europeans, will at least serve as 
convenient points to concentrate, arrange and 
compare the facts and evidences brought for- 
ward ; and may enable the observer the better to 
proceed in any future attempts to generalize. 

There appear to have been three eras in the 
aboriginal occupancy of the continent, or more 
strictly speaking, three conditions of occupancy, 
which may be conveniently grouped as eras, 
although the precise limits of them may be 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 171 

matters of some uncertainty. To make this 
uncertainty less than it now is, and to erect these 
eras on probable foundations, the proofs drawn 
from monuments, mounds, fortifications, ditches, 
earth-works, barrows, implements of art, and 
whatever other kind of evidence antiquity affords, 
may, it is thought, be gathered together in some- 
thing like this shape, namely: 

1. Vestiges and proofs of the era of the abo- 
riginal migration from other parts of the globe. 
These, so far as arts or evidences of a material 
character are denoted, must necessarily be ex- 
ceedingly limited, if any of undoubted authen- 
ticity shall, indeed, now be found. The depart- 
ments of physiology, and philology, which have 
heretofore constituted the principal topics of 
research, are still an attractive, and by no means 
a closed field. 

2. Proofs and vestigesof their continental mi- 
grations, wars, affinities and general ethnological 
characteristics, prior to the discovery of the con- 
tinent. Such are the grouping of languages; 
the similarity or dissimilarity of arts, modes of 
defence, and means of subsistence. 

3. Proofs and vestiges of occupancy, change, 
and progress, subsequent to the Columbian period. 

With regard to the first era, it is almost wholly 
the subject of general and profound scientific and 
philosophical investigations, which require a 
union of great advantages for successful study. 
The second and third eras, fall within the com- 



172 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

pass of ordinary observation. Both kinds of 
proof may exist at the very same localities. 
They do not necessarily imply diverse or remote 
geographical positions. We know that some of 
the leading tribes, the Cherokees (till within a 
few years,) and the Iroquois, for instance, have 
continued to live in the very same positions in 
which they were found by the first explorers. 
As their chiefs and warriors died, they carried to 
their places of burial, (such was the result of 
ancient and general custom,) those kinds of 
ornaments, arms and utensils, which were the 
distinguishing tokens of art, of the several eras 
in which they lived. The coming of European 
races among them introduced fabrics of metal, 
earths, enamels, glass, and other materials more 
or less durable, and capable of resisting decom- 
position. These would necessarily take the 
place of the aboriginal articles of stone and shell, 
before employed. If then, places of sepulture 
were permanent, the inquirer at the present day 
would find the various fabrics of the second and 
the third eras, in the same cemeteries and burial 
grounds, and sometimes in the same barrows 
and mounds. 

Modes of defence would also alter by the 
introduction of the second period. The simple 
ring-fort, with palisades, crowning a hill, which 
might have served as a place of excellent de- 
fence, against bows and arrows and clubs, would 
prove utterly useless, as the Tiiscaroras found at 



ARCHEOLOGY. 173 

Naharuke in 1712, after the introduction of artil- 
lery. A trench to obtain water, from a spring or 
creek, leading from one of the works of the older 
period, might have been so covered as to afibrd 
full protection from the simple aboriginal mis- 
siles. Besides this, the combination of several 
tribes, as the Iroquois, the Algonquins, the Erics, 
AUeghans and others, might render these simple 
forts, defended with ditches, mounds, and other- 
wise, no longer necessary, in the interior of their 
territory, after the time of such general com- 
binations or confederacies. And in this case, 
these works would be deserted and become ruins, 
long before the period of the discovery. 

It is affirmed by their traditions, that, in the 
older periods of their occupancy of this con- 
tinent, they were even obhged, or their fears 
suggested the measure, to build coverts and forts 
to protect themselves and families from the 
inroads of monsters, giants and gigantic animals. 
We are not at liberty to disregard this, be the 
recitals symbolic or true. Such places would 
aiford convenient shelters for their vi^omen and 
children, at the particular times of such inroads, 
while the warriors collected to make battle 
against the common enemy. Whether this ene- 
my carried a huge paw or a spear, we need not 
determine. The one was quite as much an ob- 
ject of aboriginal terror as the other. Whatever 
be the character of the antiquarian object to be 
examined, it will be well to bear in mind these 
ancient and changing conditions of the aborigin- 



174 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

al population. If no absolute historical light 
be elicited thereby, we shall be the more likely 
to get rid of some of the confessed darkness en- 
veloping the subject, and thns narrow the un- 
satisfying and historically hateful boundaries of 
mystery. 

In applying these principles to the antiquarian 
remains of the area of western New York, which 
has been a theme of frequent allusion and de- 
scription, at least since the life time of De Witt 
Clinton, it is merely proposed to offer a few con- 
tributions to the store of our antiquities, in the 
hope that other and abler hands may proceed in 
the investigation. 

• ANCIENT FORT IN LENOX. 

Some years have elapsed since I visited this 
work, (1812,) and the plough and spade may 
have further obliterated the lines, then more or 
less fully apparent. But in the meantime no 
notice of it has been published. The following 
outlines denote its extent and character. 

A indicates the lines of a picketted work. B 
is an extensive plain, covered with wild grass 
and some shrubbery, which had once been in 
cultivation. The northern edge of this plain is 
traversed by a stream, which has worn its bed 
down in the unconsolidated strata, so as to create 
quite a deep gorge, C. This stream is joined 
from the west, by a small run, having its origin 
in a spring, D. Its channel, at the point of 
junction, is as deep below the level of the plain 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



175 



as the other.* The point of junction itself forms 
a natural horn- work, which covered access to the 
water. The angle of the plain, thus marked, 
constituted the point defended. The excavations, 
E, may have once been square. They are now 




* Some few miles below this stream is the site of an iron 
cupola or blast furnace, where the red or lenticular oxyde is re- 
duced. 



176 . HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

indentations, disclosing carbonaceous matter, as 
if from the decay of wood. No wood, or coal, 
however, existed. Their use in this position is 
not apparent, connected with the designated lines 
of palisades, unless it be supposed that they were 
of an older period than the latter, and designate 
pits, such as the aborigines used in defence. 
This idea is favored by the ground being a little 
raised at this point, and so formed that it would 
have admitted the ancient circular Indian pali- 
sade. If such were the case, however, it seems 
evident that the spot had been selected by the 
French, at an early period, when, as is known, 
they attempted to obtain a footing in the country 
of the Oneidas, The distance is less than ten 
miles northwest of Oneida Castle. It probably 
covered a mission. The site, which my inform- 
ant, lr\dng near, called the Old French Field, may 
be supposed to have been cultivated by servants 
or traders connected with it. The oak and maple 
trees, which once covered it, as denoted by the 
existing forest, F F, are such, in size and num- 
ber, as to have required expert axemen to fell. 

With the exception of two points, in the Oneida 
Creek valley, where there are still vestiges of 
French occupation, supported by tradition, this 
work is the most easterly of those known, which 
remain to testify the adventurous spirit, zeal and 
perseverance which marked the attempt of the 
French crown to plant the flag and the cross in 
western New York. The bold nature of this 
scheme to colonize the country, and bring the 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 177 

Iroquois to acknowledge their dependence upon 
France, and the importance of the experiment 
and the issue, cannot be well conceived without 
reference to the history of those times. Pending 
the famous expedition of the Chevalier de Vau- 
dreuil, 1696, into the Iroquois country, it is 
known that the Jesuit Milet was stationed among 
the Oneidas, over whom he had so much in- 
fluence, that soon after the termination of this 
vain display of power, thirty Oneidas deserted 
to the French, and desired that Milet might be 
appointed their pastor.* 

ANCIENT SITE OF THE ONONDAGAS. 
The fact that the ruins of a square fort, with 
extensive sub-lines in the nature of an enclosure, 
had existed on the elevated grounds on the right 
banks of the Kasonda or Butternut creek, a mile 
or tv^^o from Jamesville, at the period of its first 
settlement, led me to visit it. There was the 
more interest imparted to this well attested tra- 
dition of the present inhabitants, by the accounts 
of the Onondagas, that this valley, in its extent 
above and below Jamesville, was one of their 
earliest points of settlement, prior to the era of 
their establishing their council fire at Onondaga 
Hollow. The subjoined sketch, although not 
plotted from actual measurement, will convey 
an idea of the relative position and former im- 
portance of the principal features, geographical 
and artificial, denoted. 

* Colden's Five Nations, p. 193. 
24 



178 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



A indicates the site of the fort, which at the 
time of my visit, was covered with a luxuriant 
field of wheat, without a feature to denote that 
it had ever been held under any other jurisdic- 
tion but that of the plough. The farm which 
embraces it, is owned and occupied by Isaac 



Jx^ 

s^'^^^' 






i W 









-■-"%', G 



•>^ 






Mi 



(i 







Keeler, who remarks that, at the time he came 
to settle here, the site of the old fort was an 
extensive opening in the forest, bearing grass, 
with some clumps of wild plum trees, and a 
few forest trees. On this opening, the first regi- 



ARCHEOLOGY. 179 

ment of militia that ever paraded in Onondaga 
county, met. It was commanded by Major De 
Witt, after whom the township is now named. 

About the year 1810, he felled an oak, near 
the site of the fort, measuring two feet six inches 
in diameter. In recutting it for fire wood, after 
it had been drawn to his door, a leaden bullet 
was found, covered by one hundred and forty- 
three cortical layers. From its position, em- 
bedded as it was in the compact wood, it was still 
some distance to the heart of the tree. He thinks 
this tree may have been a sapling when the 
bullet was fired. Whether this conjecture be 
true or not, one hundred and forty-three years 
appear to have elapsed since the bullet assumed 
its position. This Avould give A. D. 1667 as the 
era.' 

In 1666, the governor of Canada concluded a 
treaty with the Onondaga Iroquois, as is seen 
from the Paris Documents obtained by Mr. Brod- 
head. Golden' s history of the Five Nations, 
which has been the principal source of informa- 
tion heretofore, after a brief summary of tra- 
ditionary matter,* in the first chapter, opens with 
the transactions in 1665. This matter is more 
fully and satisfactorily stated by Charlevoix in 
his History of New France, from whom it is pre- 
sumable Colden drew his information of the 
former power and preeminence of the Adiron- 
dacks. 

* The States General of Holland surrendered New York to 
the Enorlish crown in 1664. 



180 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

During this yearDe Traci came out as viceroy 
of New France, and the same year Monsieur 
Coursel, who is notorious for his perfidy in exe- 
cuting the Iroquois sachem, Agariata, arrived 
with the commission of governor-general of 
Canada. But there is little to be found bearing 
directly on the subject before us. 

It Avould appear from the journal of the Jesuit, 
Father Le Moyne, as given in the missionary 
Relacions, that the country of the Onondagas 
was not discovered and explored until the year 
1653. Facts disclosed by him in the same letter 
denote, however, prior negotiations with the 
French authorities, and we are probably to un- 
derstand only, that as yet no missionaries, from 
his order, had visited, or been established 
amongst this tribe.^ In this view, and from the 
incidental light which he throws on some other 
topics, such as the new breaking out of the war 
with the Fries, the discovery of the salt springs, 
and the existence of the bufialo in the country, 
this letter is important to the early Iroquois his- 
tory, and a translation of it is hereto appended. f 
It is certain that no mission or fort had then 
been introduced. A footing may, however, have 
been gained by the French within the next 
fourteen years, that is, at the time of the apparent 

* That the Dutch traders had visited Onondaga at an ear- 
lier period is very probable. The Dutch had then been settled 
forty years at Albany, 

t Vide chap, x., original discovery of the Onondaga coun- 
try. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 181 

date of the existence of the old fort on the right 
hanks of the Kasonda * 

Where history fails, we may appeal to tradition 
and to the proofs drawn from antiquarian re- 
mains. Isaac Keeler, who is before mentioned, 
exhibited to me one-half of the brass circle of a 
dial plate, three inches (less two-tenths) in diam- 
eter, which had been ploughed up by him on 
the site of the fort, or from that general area. 
This circle had engraved, in good Roman cha- 
racters, the numbers II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII. 
He likewise exhibited the box of a small brass 
pocket compass, Avith a screw Hd one inch and 
two-tenths in diameter. From this instrument 
the needle had been removed and its place sup- 
plied by Vermillion, the highly prized war pig- 
ment of the Indians. When ploughed up and 
found at the bottom of a furrow, it was encrusted 
with oxide, but restored by washing and friction 
to its original color and even surface. On being 
opened, it was found to contain the pigment, of 
which I examined a portion. It appeared to me 
to have been, not the Chinese vermillion of the 
trade, but the duller red article, which is, I be- 
lieve, a peroxide of lead prepared by the Dutch. 

Among the articles which he had preserved 
were the following: 

* Fire-arms began to be first introduced among the Iroquois 
in 1609, the very year that Hudson explored the river now 
bearing his name. In this year, Champlain, heading the 
Algonquins, with some regular troops in Lake Corlear (since 
called Chan:nlain,) defeated the Mohawks by the use of fire 
arms. 



182 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

1. A crucifix of brass of two inches in length, 
ornamented by a human figure, and having a 
metallic loop for suspending it. 

2. An octagonal medal, four-tenths of an inch, 
of the same material, bearing a figure with the 
name St. Agatha, and the Latin word ora, apart 
of the Gregorian chant. 

3. A similar medal, five-tenths of an inch in 
length, with a figure, inscribed St. Lucia, and 
the same fragment of a chant. 

4. A rude medal of lead, an inch and four- 
tenths long, ovate, with the figure of the Saviour, 
as is supposed, being that of a person suspended 
by the outstretched hands, however, and the 
figure of a serpent, as if this form of temptation, 
had been presented during his advent. On the 
reverse, is a sitting figure, which bears most 
resemblance to a common and characteristic 
position of one of the native priests or prophets. 
Should this conjecture be correct, this figure may 
have been intended, adopting the Indian me- 
thod, to teach the office of the Saviour by a 
symbol. He is thus shown, however, to be 
merely the priest and prophet of men — an idea 
which does not coincide with catholic theology, 
and which, if not enlarged and corrected by 
verbal teaching, would convey no conception of 
his divine character and atonement, and thus 
leave the Onondaga neophyte as essentially in 
the dark as before. To figure the Saviour as the 
great Josakeed of men, as is done in this medal, 
is indeed the most extraordinary and audacious 



ARCHEOLOGY. 183 

act of which the history of missions among rude 
nations affords any parallel. The novelty of 
this feature in this apparently home-wrought 
model, gives it a claim to be hereafter figured. 

5. An iron horse-shoe, four and a half inches 
long nearly, and five inches (lacking two-tenths) 
broad, with three elongated nail holes in each 
side, and a clumsy steel cork, partially worn. 
The peculiar fabric of this shoe, its clumsiness 
and spread, and the little mechanical skill which 
it evinces in the hammering and general make, 
denote it to be very clearly the workmanship of 
a Canadian blacksmith, such as a rude Canadian 
blacksmith is still to be witnessed, in the lake 
country, and to have been, at the same time, 
intended for the unfarried hoofs of the Canadian 
horse. 

6. A pair of iron strap hinges, common and 
coarse. These my informant had turned to ac- 
count, by employing them to hang the little gate 
which led, through a small flower plat, to his 
dwelling house. See figure F. 

These articles have been selected for notice 
from many of more common occurrence, such as 
beads of coarse paste, enamel and glass, of 
various sizes and colors, which are evidently of 
European make. My informant further stated 
that a blacksmith's anvil, vice, horn, and almost 
every other' article of a smith's shop, had been 
from time to time found on the site or in the 
vicinity, but there was nothing of this kind in 
his possession. On the south declivity of the 



184 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

hill, near the present road leading east to Pompey 
hill, there is a spring still sheltered with shrub- 
bery, which he supposes furnished the fort with 
water. 

This fort constitutes but a part of the very 
marked evidences of former occupancy by man 
in a civilized state, and in a forgotten age, which 
occur in this portion of Onondaga, chiefly in the 
present towns of Pompey, Lafayette, De Witt, 
Camillus and Manlius. Other observed locali- 
ties and facts derived from other witnesses, 
illustrating the character of this fort, and of the 
ancient Indian settlements in the Kasonda valley, 
are marked H in the annexed sketch. 

In this plat B denotes the site of an ancient 
Onondaga town or village, immediately on the 
banks of the stream, where water could be 
readily obtained for all purposes. C is the lo- 
cality of the cemetery used at the period, on the 
ascending grounds on the north banks of the 
stream. It constitutes a well marked transverse 
ridge. Immediately west of it rises a natural 
mound, marked D, of large size, nearly conical 
in its shape, and terminating in a flat surface or 
plain, of an ovate border, some twelve by seven- 
teen paces. James Gould, the proprietor of the 
land, who, from his residence, guided me to the 
spot, remarks that this conical hill was former- 
ly covered with a hard wood forest, similar in 
its species to those of the surrounding country, 
with the exception of a spot, some four or five 
paces diameter, on its apex. This spot was, 



ARCHEOLOGY. 185 

however, completely veiled from sight by the 
overtopping trees until the arcanum was entered. 
From the peculiar character of this eminence, 
and its relative position to the village and burial 
ground, it may be supposed to have been the site 
of the seer's lodge, from which he uttered his 
sacred responses. 

Speaking of the old fort of Kasonda, this in- 
formant remarked, that when he came into the 
country, its outlines could still be traced ; that it 
was a square fort, with bastions, and had streets 
within it. It had been set round Avith cedar 
pickets, which had been burned to the ground. 
Stumps of these ancient palisades were struck 
by the plough. It is on this testimony, which 
at the same time denotes a violent destruction 
of the work, that the geometrical figure of it, 
represented in A, is drawn. He had, I think, 
been in the revolutionary army, and drawn his 
bounty lands, as many of the original settlers on 
the military tract had done. He knew therefore, 
the import of the military terms he employed. 

In a collection of aboriginal antiquarian arti- 
cles at his house, he permitted me to make 
drawings of any taken from the fort grounds, or 
disinterred from ancient Indian graves, which 
appeared to me to merit it. Of these, but a few 
are pertinent to the present inquiry. They are 
as follows: 

Number 1, represents an antique collar or 
medal, {Nabikocigun,) wrought out of sea shell. It 
is crossed with two parallel, and two horizontal 



186 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

lines, ornamented with dots, and dividing the 
surface into four equal parts. An orifice exists 
for introducing a string to suspend it about the 
neck. This species of article is found in Indian 
graves of the period preceding the discovery of 
the continent, or not extending more than one 
or two generations into the new period. It was 
probably an elegant ornament when bright and 
new, and exhibiting the natural color and nacer 
of the shell. Inhumation has so far served to 
decompose the surface, as to coat it with a limy 
or chalky exterior, which effervesces in mineral 
acids. By scraping deep into it, the shelly struc- 
ture is detected. This kind of ornament, varying 
much in size, was probably soon replaced by 
the metallic gorget and medal introduced by the 
trade, and has long been unknown both to In- 
dians and traders. I found it first in Indian 
cemeteries of the west, without, however, for 
some time suspecting its real nature, supposing 
it some variety of altered pottery, or enamel 
paste ; but have since traced it over the entire 
area of the ancient occupation of western New 
York, and, so far as examined, of Canada. 

No. 2. A stone ring, one inch and two-tenths 
in diameter, made of a dark species of somewhat 
hard steatite or slaty rock. Its characteristic 
trait is Ibund in its adaptation to the middle 
finger, (of a male) and its having eleven distinct 
radiating lines. 

No. 3. A globular bead or amulet, (Minace,) 
of sea shell one inch and a half in diameter, solid 



ARCHEOLOGY. 187 

and massy, having an orifice for suspending it. 
It is slightly ovate. Its structure from shell, is 
distinctly marked. Like the flat medal-shaped 
Nabikoagiin (No. 1.) of the same material, it has 
a limy coating from the effects of partial decom- 
position. 

In the remaining features of the sketch referred 
to, letters G G denote ancient remains of a Euro- 
pean character in the contiguous part of the town 
of Pompey, which are more particularly described 
elsewhere. E represents the Twin mounds, two 
natural formations of fine gravel and other dilu- 
vial strata, situated on the south side of the creek, 
on the farm of Jeremiah Gould. These mounds 
are conspicuous features in the landscape, from 
their regularity and position on elevated grounds, 
as well as from their connection with the ancient 
Indian history of the valley. These pyramidal 
heaps of earth are connected by a neck of earth, 
in the manner represented. They exhibit the 
appearance of having been cleared of the forest, 
almost entirely, at an ancient date. The surface 
exhibits numerous pits or holes, which excite 
the ideaof their having served as a noted locality 
for the Indian assenjigun, or pit for hiding or 
putting en cache, corn or other articles, to pre- 
serve it from enemies, or as a place of deposit 
during temporary absences from the village. 
There can, I think, be little question that this 
was the true use and relation these geological 
eminences bore to the ancient town on the Ka- 
sonda, marked B. Such, too, is the general 



188 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

impression derived from local tradition. Some 
years ago, a skeleton was exhumed from one of 
these caches. 

ANTIQUITIES OF POMPEY. 
No part of western New York has furnished a 
larger number of antiquarian remains, or been 
more often referred to, than the geographical 
area which constituted the original town of 
Pompey. There is, consequently, the less need 
of devoting elaborate attention to the details of 
this particular locality. It was first visited and 
described by De Witt Clinton, in 1810-1 1,"^ and 
the ploQgh has since rendered it a task less easy 
than it then was, to examine the lines of its 
ancient works and its archseological remains. 
It is quite evident, from the objects of art dis- 
closed at and about these antique sites of security 
and defence, that civilized man dwelt here in 
remote times, and there must be assigned to this 
part of the state a period of European occupancy 
prior to the commonly received historical era of 
discovery and settlement, or, at least, if falling 
within it, as there is now reason to believe, yet 
almost wholly unknown, or forgotten in its an- 
nals. Sismondi has well remarked, that only 
the most important events come down to pos- 
terity, and that fame, for a long flight, prepares 
to forget every thing which she possibly can. 
That no accounts should remain of obscure 
events, in a remote part of the country, at an 

♦ Trans, of Philo. and Lit. Society of New York. 



ARCHEOLOGY. 189 

early date, is not surprising'. As it is, we must 
infer both the dates and the people, from such 
antiquarian remains of works of art, and histori- 
cal comparisons as can be obtained. 

There appear to have been two or three nations 
who supplied very early visitors or residents to 
ancient Onondaga, namely, the Dutch, French 
and Spanish, the latter as merely temporary 
visitors or explorers. Both the Dutch and the 
French carried on an early trade here with the 
Iroquois. It is most probable that there are no 
remains of European art, or have ever been any 
disclosed, in this part of the country, one only 
excepted,* which are not due to the early at- 
tempts of the Dutch and French, to establish the 
far trade among these populous and powerful 
tribes. To some extent, missionary operations 
were connected with the efforts of both nations. 
But whatever was the stress laid on this subject, 
by protestants or catholics, neither object could 
be secured without the exhibition of fire-arms 
and certain military defences, such as stockades 
and picketted works, with gates, afforded. No 
trader could, in the 16th and 17th centuries, se- 
curely trust his stock of goods, domestic animals, 
(if he had any,) or his own life, in the midst of 
fierce and powerful tribes, who acknowledged 
no superior, and who were, besides, subject to 
the temporary excitement created by the limited 
use of alcohol. For we can assign absolutely no 
date to the early European intercourse with these 

* Antique stone with an inscription, Albany Institute. 



190 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

tribes, in which there was no article of this kind, 
more or less employed. Probably we should not 
have been left, as we are, to mere conjectures 
on this subject, at least between the important 
dates of 1609 and 1664, had not the directors of 
the state paper office in Holland decided, in 
1820, to sell the books and records of the Dutch 
West India Company, as waste paper."* 

In examining the archaeology of this part of 
New York, we are, therefore, to look for decisive 
proofs of the early existence of this trade in the 
hands of the two powers named. The Dutch 
were an eminently commercial people, at the 
epoch in question, and pursued the fur trade to 
remote parts of the interior, at an early date. 
They had scarcely any other object at the time 
but to make this trade profitable. Settlements 
and cultivation was a business in the hands of 
patroons, and was chiefly confined to the rich 
valleys and intervales of the southern parts of 
the state. They were, at the same time, too 
sagacious to let any thing interrupt their good 
understanding with the natives; and on this 
account, probably, had less need of military 
defences of a formidable kind than the French, 
who were a foreign power. It Avas, besides, the 
policy of New France, — a policy most persever- 
ingly pursued, — to wrest this trade, and the 
power of the Indians, from the hands of the 
Dutch and their successors, the English. They 
sought not only to obtain the trade, but they 

* Vide Mr. Brodhead's Report. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 191 

intrigued for the territory. They also made the 
most strenuous endeavors to enlist the minds of 
the Indians, by the ritual observances of the 
Romish church, and to propagate among the 
Iroquois its peculiar doctrines. They united in 
this early effort the sword, the cross, and the 
purse. 

Were all the libraries of Europe and America 
burned and totally destroyed, there would re- 
main incontestible evidences of each of the above 
named efforts, in the metallic implements, guns, 
sword blades, hatchets, locks, bells, horse-shoes, 
hammers, paste and glass beads, medals, cruci- 
fixes and other remains, which are so frequently 
turned up by the plough in the fertile wheat and 
cornfields of Onondaga. 

Looking beyond this era, but still found in the 
same geographical area, are the antiquities pe- 
culiar to the Ante-Columbian period, and th*e 
age of intestine Indian wars. These are found 
in various parts of the state, in the ancient ring 
forts, angular trenches, moats, barrows, or lesser 
mounds, which constituted the ancient simple 
Indian system of castramentation. 

This era is not less strongly marked by the 
stone hatchets, pestles, fleshing instruments, 
arrow heads and javelins of chert and hornstone ; 
amulets of stone, bone and sea-shells, wrought 
and unwrought ; needles of bone, coarse pottery, 
pipes, and various other evidences of antique 
Indian art. The practice of interring their fa- 
vorite utensils, ornaments and amulets with the 



192 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

dead, renders their ancient grave yards, barrows 
and mounds the principal repositories of these 
arts. They are, in effect, so many museums of 
antiquity. 

The field for this species of observation is so 
large and attractive to the antiquarian, that far 
more time than w^as at my command, Avould 
be required to cultivate it. Early in the year 
1845, Mr. Joshua V. H. Clark visited some of 
the principal scenes mentioned. Subsequently, 
at my suggestion and solicitation, he revisited 
the same localities and extended his inquiries 
to others of an interesting character, in the 
county of Onondaga, descriptions of which are 
presented in a subsequent part of this work. 

ANCIENT FORTIFICATION OF OSCO.* 
The eminence called Fort Hill, in the south- 
western skirts of the village of Auburn, has at- 
tracted notice from the earliest times. lis height 
is such as to render it a very commanding spot, 

* This ancient name for the site of Auburn, was communi- 
cated to me by the intelligent Onondaga, Taht-kaht-ons, or 
Abraham Le Fort, It is descriptive of the ford or crossing 
place, which anciently existed above the falls, near the site of 
the present turnpike bridge. This Avas crossed by stepping 
stones, &c. The barks, which made a part of a rude Indian 
bridge, were, at the time the name was bestowed, nearly 
overflowed; the crossing was very dangerous, as it was just 
above the brink of the falls, and it was an act of daring to 
pass over. The name bestowed at this time became perpetual, 
although there may have been but little danger in crossing 
afterwards. 



ARCHiEOLOGY. 



193 



and crowned, as it was, with a pentagessimal 
work, earthern ramparts and palisades of entire 
efficacy against Indian missiles, it must have 
been an impregnable stronghold during the pe- 
riods of their early intestine wars. The follow- 
ing diagram, drawn by James H. Bostwick, 
surveyor, and obligingly furnished by S. A. 
Goodwin, Esq., exhibits its dimensions : 




The site of this work is the highest land in 
the vicinity, and a visit to it affords one of the 
best and most varied views of the valley of the 
Owasco, and the thriving and beautiful inland 
town of Auburn, with its public buildings, pri- 
26 



194 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

son,^ and other noted public edifices. The 
ellipsis enclosed by the embankments, with their 
intervening spaces, has a circumference of 1200 
feet. Its minor dimensions are as follows, 
namely : 

From A to M, 310 feet; from B to L, 416 feet. 
Opening at A, 166 feet; opening at B, 66 feet, 
opening at C, 78 feet; opening at D, 60 feet; 
opening at E, 50 feet. Wall at F, 275 feet ; wall 
at G, 145 feet; wall at H, 278 feet; wall at I, 
52 feet; wall at K, 30 feet. 

Viewed as a military work, the numerous 
breaks or openings in the wall, marked from A 
to C, constitute rather its characteristic trait. 
They are of various and irregular widths, and it 
seems most difficult to decide why they are so 
numerous. If designed for egress or regress, 
they are destitute of the principle of security, 
unless they were defended by other works of 
destructible material, which have wholly dis- 
appeared. The widest opening (of 166 feet, J 
opens directly north, the next in point of width 
(78 feet,) directly south; but in order to give 
these or any of the other spaces the character of 
entry or sally ports, and, indeed, to render the 
entire wall defensible, it must have had palisa- 
does. 

* One of tho most striking evidences of that tendenc}' of the 
surface limestone stratification of western New York to as- 
sume a fissured character, marked by the cardinal points, is 
seen in the banks of the Owasco, a short distance below the 
State Pri.-on. 



ARCHEOLOGY. 195 

Immediately below the openings at E, D, C, 
and a part of the embankment F, there are a 
series of deep ravines, separated by acute ridges, 
which must have made this part of the work 
difficult of approach. In front of the great north 
opening, the ground descends gradually about 
seventy feet, when there is a perfect acclivity. 
The hill has its natural extension towards the 
east, for several hundred yards, in the course of 
which a transverse depression in the surface 
separates the eastern terminus of the ridge from 
its crown at the site of the fort. 

It is not known that excavations have been 
made for antiquarian remains, so that there is 
no accessory light to be derived from this source. 
The entire work conforms to the genius and 
character of the red races who occupied the 
Ohio valley, and who appear to have waged 
battle for the possession of this valuable part of 
the country prior to the era of the discovery of 
America, and ere the Iroquois tribes had con- 
federated and made themselves masters of the 
soil. That the art of defence by field works 
was cultivated by the ancient American tribes, 
is denoted by their traditions, as well as by the 
present state of our antiquarian knowledge. 
This art did not aspire to the construction of 
bastions, at the intersection of two right angled 
lines, by means of which a length of wall might 
have been enfiladed with arrows. Even where 
the works were a square or parallelogram, of 
which there are one or two instances amonsr the 



196 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

oldest class of forts, such an obvious advantage 
in defence does not appear to have occurred. 
Fire, and the coal chisel, or digger, were the 
ready means of felling trees, and of dividing the 
trunks into suitable lengths for palisades. To 
heap a pile of earth within and ivithout such lines, 
was the mode adopted by the Tuscaroras at the 
siege of Naharuke, in 1712, and it is probable 
that this then powerful and warlike nation had 
inherited much of the skill in fort building pos- 
sessed by their northern predecessors. 

The chief point in addition to its numerous 
breaks in the wall, before noticed, in which this 
work differs from the generality of antique native 
forts of the oldest period in this state, is its very 
well preserved elliptical form. A circle is the 
usual form of the antique forts of Indian origin 
in western New York; and these works are 
generally placed on the apex of a hill, covered 
by ravines as a natural moat, or they occupy an 
eminence which commanded other advantages. 

ANCIENT ELLIPTICAL WORK AT CANANDAIGUA. 
The Senecas deduce their descent from a noted 
eminence, bearing the title of Fort Hill, at the 
head of the sylvan expanse of Canandaigua lake. 
The term of Fort Hill is, however, not confined 
to that spot, but is, as in the work under consi- 
deration, one of common occurrence, in sundry 
parts of the ancient and extended area of the 
Six Nations. The subjoined sketch, denotes the 
vestiges of an ancient strong-hold of the Senecas, 



ARCHiEOLOGY. 



197 



of an elliptical form, on elevated lands about a 
mile northerly from the village. 




This work has been nearly obliterated by the 
plough. The only portions of the ancient wall 
yet remaining, are indicated by the letters B B. 
At A, a dwelling house has been erected, flanked 
by gardens. C, is a turnpike or rectangular 
town road, passing over the apex of the eleva- 
tion. The dotted angular lines denote fields in 



198 HISTOKY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

cultivation, and the dotted ellipses through these 
grounds, are laid down from tradition, rather 
than from any well defined vestiges in these 
fields of the original wall yet visible. D J), repre- 
sents a native forest. Judging from the curves 
of the portions of wall entire at B B, in connec- 
tion with the area pointed out by the occupant, 
this work may have had a circumference of one 
thousand feet. It occupied a commanding site. 
The sections of the wall remaining, denote the 
labor of many hands, and if this rampart Avas 
crowned with palisades, and secured in the usual 
manner with gates, it must not only have fur- 
nished a garrison to a large body of warriors, 
but have been a work of much strength. 

In excavating the grounds for the road, in the 
approach to the village, human bones were found 
in considerable quantities, on the descent of the 
hill, together with some of the usual vestiges of 
ancient Indian art, as evinced in the manufac- 
ture of stone and clay pipes and implements. 
Nothing of this kind had, however, been pre- 
served, which appeared worthy of particular 
description. 

ANCIENT ENTRENCHMENTS ON FORT HILL. 

The following diagram of this work has been 
drawn from a pen sketch, forwarded by the Rev. 
Mr. Dewey, of Rochester. 

The work occurs on an elevated point of land 
formed by the junction of a small stream, called 
Fordham's brook, with Allen's creek, a tributary 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



199 



of the Genesee river. Its position is about tkree 
miles north of the village of Le Roy, and some 
ten or twelve northeast of Batavia. The best 




view of the hill, as one of the natural features of 
the country, is obtained a short distance north 
of it, on the road from Bergen to Le Roy. 

To attain a proper conception of its suscepti- 
bilities and capacity, as the site of a v/ork of 
defence, it is essential to conceive the country, 
for some distance, to have had the level of the 
extreme plain, forming the highest part of the 



200 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

fort. The geological column of this plain, after 
passing down through the unconsolida.ted strata, 
appears to be composed of various strata of 
corniferous limestone, Onondaga or hydraulic 
limestone, and perhaps Medina sandstone. Geo- 
logical causes, originating, so far as we can im- 
mediately perceive, in the two streams named, 
have cut down this series of stratifications, on the 
north, east and west, unequally, to the depth of 
some eighty or ninety feet, isolating the original 
plain, on three sides, by the valleys of Allen's creek 
and Fordham's brook. Availing themselves of 
this heavy amount of natural excavation, the 
ancient occupants of it further strengthened its 
position, by casting up a wall and ditch along the 
brow of the two valleys, at the pointsof their junc- 
tion, from A to B, 60 rods; from A to D, 30 rods; 
and from B to C, 15 rods. This is as much of the 
embankment as now remains ; but tradition adds, 
that on the earliest occupancy of the country, 
there were evidences that the work had been con- 
tinued south from the extreme points, C, D, and 
connected by an enclosure, parallel to A, B, which 
would have given it a regular quadrangular shape. 
The encroachments of the respective valleys, at 
C and D, now terminate the trench. And if we 
concede that geological changes of this kind 
must have required some time for their produc- 
tion, by the present power of action possessed 
by the streams named, it is an argument for the 
antiquity of the work. But, however antique, it 
was still the effort of a rude, and at best half 



ARCHEOLOGY. 201 

civilized people, at an epoch when bows and 
arrows, clubs, spears and stones, and the stone 
cassatete* were the principal weapons of defence. 
For these are the chief objects of antiquarian 
interest dug from the ground. . There are also 
disclosed by the place or its vicinity, the amule- 
tum archaeus and other amulets of sea shell, bone 
and fossil stone, which were so much prized by 
the ancient red races of this continent, by whom 
they were manufactured, and exclusivly used 
before the era of the discovery. That the spot 
continued, however, Avhether a min or not, to be 
visited or occupied, after this era, is proved by 
some remains of art, which were found here and 
described by Mr. FoUet, in a letter which consti- 
tutes a valuable part of the materials employed 
in this description. But the most remarkable 
and distinctive trait connected with its archee- 
ology is the discovery of human bones denoting 

* I find the French word cassatete more exactly descriptive 
of the probable and exclusive uses of the antique stone toma- 
hawk, than any other which has been met with. The 
shape of this warlike instrument resembled strongly the 
ancient crossbill. It presents the figure of a crescent, tapering 
gradually to the ends, which are rounded and proceed to a 
sharp point. In the concave centre of the crescent is an orifice 
for a helve. It is an instrument denoting skill, and the pos- 
session of some mechanical tool for carving it, harder than the 
dark silecious slate, from which it is generally made. One of 
these instruments sent to me by Mr. Follet, of Batavia, and 
which, from an inscription, was found " in that vicinity by 
Jerome A. Clark, Esq., on the 16th May, 1S44," is worthy 
the chisel of a sculptor. 

27 



202 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

an uncommon stature and development, which 
are mentioned in the same communication. A 
humerus or shoulder bone, which is preserved, 
denotes a stature one-third larger than the present 
race, and there is also a lower jaw bone, pre- 
served by a physician at Batavia, from the vicin- 
ity, which indicates the same gigantic measure 
of increase. 

To supply the fort with water, a trench was 
continued about fifteen rods, from B, at the 
northeast angle, to E, in order to reach a spring 
below the declivity. In the isolated portion of 
the hill, marked F, haiks of moderate sized round 
stones have been found, which were probably 
one of the ancient means of defence. This spot, 
from the remains found, appears also to have 
been an ancient place of burial. Among the 
articles exhumed, were several curious pipes of 
stone and earthenware. One of these was form- 
ed out of granular limestone ; another was of 
baked clay in the form of a man's head and face, 
the nose, eyes and other features being depicted 
in a style resembling some of the figures in Mr. 
Stephens's plate of the ruins of Central America. 
The top of the head is surrounded by a fillet; on 
the occipital part are also two fillets. The neck 
has a similar ornament, and there is another on 
the breast. The orifices of the ears are denoted, 
and the whole evinces no little degree of art. 
This is the most curious relic found. 

Another pipe of reddish baked clay is orna- 
mented with dots; two rows of Avhich extend 



ARCHJEOLOGY. 203 

round it, and another in festoons, like a chain 
looped up. 

Other parts of the topography are denoted by 
the plot. Q, W, is Allen's creek; H, I, K, Ford- 
ham's brook; L, P, M, a branch of Fordham's 
brook; R, N, V, denote the road, which passes 
through the centre of the work. A former road 
led from U down the ravine to T. There was 
formerly a bridge at N, to cross the ditch. This 
trench was estimated by early observers at from 
eight to ten feet deep, and as many wide. The 
earth in making it had been thrown either way, 
but much of it inwards. Forest trees were 
standing, both in the trench and on its sides. 
In size and age they appeared to be equal to the 
general growth of the forest. Prostrate upon the 
ground, there were found numerous trunks of 
the heart- wood of black cherry trees of large size. 
These were evidently the remains of a more 
antique forest, which had preceded the existing 
growth of beech and maple. They were in such 
a state of soundness as to be employed for timber 
by the first settlers. 

There were no traditions among the Indians 
of the country respecting the use and design of 
this work. It was to them, as to the first set- 
tlers, an object of mystery. About half a mile 
below the hill, Allen's creek has a fall of some 
eighty feet. It is a perpendicular fall of much 
beauty. At this place the hydraulic limestone 
is seen to be the underlying rock. This rock 



204 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

had also been struck in excavating the north 
line of the trench on Fort Hill, and some portions 
of it had been thrown out with the earth. 

Such are the interesting facts communicated 
to me, by the gentlemen whose names have 
been mentioned. The notice of the present al- 
tered state of the site, and the following just 
reflections naturally springing from the subject, 
may be stated in the exact words of Dr. Dewey : 

" The forest has been removed. Not a tree 
remains on the quadrangle, and only a few on 
the edge of the ravine on the west. By culti- 
vating the land, the trench is nearly filled in 
some places, though the line of it is clearly seen. 
On the north side the trench is considerable, 
and where the road crosses it, is three or four 
feet deep at the sides of the road. It will take 
only a few years more to obliterate it entirely, as 
not even a stump remains to mark out its line. 

" From this view it may be seen or inferred, 

" 1. That a real trench bounded three sides 
of the quadrangle. On the south side there was 
not found any trace of trench, palisadoes, blocks, 
&c. 

" 2. It was formed long before the whites 
came into the country. The large trees on the 
ground and in the trench, carry us back to an 
early era. 

"3. The workers must have had some conve- 
nient tools for excavation. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 205 

"4. The direction of the sides may have 
liad some reference to the four cardinal points, 
though the situation of the ravines naturally 
marked out the lines. 

"5. It cannot have been designed merely to 
catch wild animals, to be driven into it from the 
south. The oblique line down to the spring is 
opposed to this supposition, as well as the insuf- 
ficiency of such a trench to confine the animals 
of the forest. 

" 6. The same reasons render it improbable 
that the quadrangle was designed to confine 
and protect domestic animals. 

" 7. It was probably a sort of fortified place. 
There might have been a defence on the south 
side by a stockade, or some similar means, 
which might have entirely disappeared. 

" By what people was this work done ? 

" The articles found in the burying ground at 
F, offer no certain reply. The axes, chisels, &c., 
found on the Indian grounds in this part of the 
state, were evidently made of the greenstone or 
trap of New England, like those found on the 
Connecticut river in Massachusetts. The pipe of 
limestone might be from that part of the country. 
The pipes seem to belong to different eras. 

"1. The limestone pipe indicates the work of 
the savage or aborigines. 

" 2. The third indicates the age of French in- 
fluence over the Indians. An intelligent French 
gentleman says such clay pipes are frequent 
among the town population in parts of France. 



206 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

" 3. The second, and most curious, seems to 
indicate an earlier age and people. 

"The beads found at Fort Hill are long and 
coarse, made of baked clay, and may have had 
the same origin as the third pipe. 

" Fort Hill cannot have been formed by the 
French as one of their posts to aid in the de- 
struction of the English colonies. In 1689, or 
156 years ago, the French in Canada made seri- 
ous attempts to destroy the English colony of 
New York. If the French had made Fort Hill 
a post as early as 1660, or 185 years ago, and 
then deserted it, the trees could not have grown 
to the size of the forest generally in 1810, or in 
150 years afterwards. The white settlements 
had extended ' only twelve miles west of Avon' 
in 1798, and some years after 1800, Fort Hill 
was covered with a dense forest. A chesnut 
tree, cut down in 1842 at Kochester, showed 
254 concentric circles of wood, and must have 
been more than 200 years old in 1800. So op- 
posed is the notion that this was a deserted 
French post. 

" Must we not refer Fort Hill to that race 
which peopled this country before the Indians, 
who raised so many monuments greatly exceed- 
ing the power of the Indians, and who lived at 
a remote era?" 



ARCHEOLOGY. 207 

ANTIQUE ROCK CITADEL OF KIENUKA. 
In the preceding- sketches, evidences have 
been presented of the readiness and good judg- 
ment of the aboriginal fort builders of western 
New York,* in availing themselves of steeps, 
gulfs, defiles, and other marked locaHties, in 
establishing works for security or defence. This 
trait is, however, in no case more strikingly ex- 
emplified than in the curious antique work be- 
fore us, which is called, by the Tuscaroras, 
Kienuka. The term Kienuka is said to mean 

* It is not without something bordering on anachronism, 
that this portion of the continent is called New York, in re- 
ference to transactions not only before the bestowal of the 
title in 1664, but long before the European race set foot on 
the continent. Still more inappropriate, however, was the 
term of New Netherlands, that is, New Lowlands, which it 
bore from 1609 to 1664, many parts of the state being charac- 
terized by lofty mountains, and all having an elevation of 
many hundreds of feet above the sea. In speaking of these 
ancient periods, a title drawn from the native vocabulary 
would better accord with the period under discussion, if not 
with the laws of euphony. But the native tribes were poor 
generalizers, and omitted to give generic names to the land. 
The term of Haonao for the continent, or island as they called 
it, occurs, but this would have no more pertinence applied to 
New York, than to any other portion of it. The geographical 
feature most characteristic of the state, is Niagara, and next 
in prominence, Ontario, and either would have furnished a 
better cognomen for the state, had they been thought of in 
season. But it is too late now to make the change, and even 
for the remote era alluded to, the name under which the 
country has grown great, is to be preferred. It is already the 
talismanic word for every honorable and social reminiscence. 



208 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the strong hold, or fort, from which there is a 
sublime view. It is situated about three and a 
half or four miles eastward of the outlet of the 
Niagara gorge at Lewiston, on a natural escarp- 
ment of the ridge. 

This ridge, which rises in one massy up- 
towering pile, almost perpendicularly, on the 
brink of the river, developes itself as Ave fol- 
low its course eastward for a mile or two, in a 
second plateau, which holds nearly a medium 
position in relation to the altitude of the ridge. 
This plateau attains to a width of a thousand 
yards or more, extending an unexplored dis- 
tance, in the curving manner of the ridge, to- 
wards Lockport. Geologically considered, its 
upper stratum is the Niagara limestone, which 
in the order of superposition, immediately overlies 
the red shaly sandstone at the falls. Its edges are 
jagged and broken, and heavy portions of it 
have been broken off, and slid down the precipice 
of red shaly undergrit, and thus assumed the 
character of debris. Over its top there has been 
a thin deposit of pebble drift, of purely diluvial 
character, forming, in general, not a very rich 
soil, and supporting a growth of oaks, maples, 
butternut, and other species common to the 
country. From the ascent of the great ridge, 
following the road from Lewiston to Tuscarora 
village, a middle road leads over this broad 
escarpment, following, apparently, an ancient 
Indian trail, and winding about with sylvan 
irregularity. Most of the trees appear to be of 



ARCHEOLOGY. 209 

second growth; they do not, at any rate, bear 
the impress of antiquity, which marks the heavy 
forests of the country. Occasionally there are 
small openings, where wigwams once stood. 
These increase as we pass on, till they assume 
the character of continuous open fields, at the 
site of the old burying ground, orchard and 
play ground of the neighboring Tuscaroras. The 
soil in these openings appears hard, compact 
and worn out, and bears short grass. The burial 
ground is filled almost entirely with sumach, 
giving it a bushy appearance, which serves 
to hide its ancient graves and small tumuli. 
Among these are two considerable barrows, or 
small elliptic mounds, the one larger than the 
other, formed of earth and angular stones. The 
largest is not probably higher than five feet, but 
may have a diameter of twenty feet in the 
longest direction. 

Directly east of this antique cemetery, com- 
mences the old orchard and area for ball play- 
ing, on which, at the time of my visit, the stakes 
or goals were standing, and thus denoted that 
the ancient games are kept up on these deserted 
fields by the youthful population of the adjacent 
Tuscarora village. A small ravine succeeds, 
with a brook falling into a gulf, or deep break 
in the escarpment, where once stood a saw mill, 
and where may still be traced some vestiges of 
this early attempt of the first settlers to obtain a 
water power from a vernal brook. Immediately 
after crossing this little ravine, and rising to the 
28 



210 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



general level of the plain, we enter the old fields 
and rock fortress of Kienuka, described in the 
following diagram. 




ARCHEOLOGY. 211 

To obtain a proper conception of this plan, it 
is necessary to advert to .geological events, in 
this part of tlie country, whose effects are very 
striking. The whole country takes an impress, 
in some degree, from the great throe which 
worked out a passage for the Niagara, through 
seven miles of solid rock, severing, at its outlet, 
the great coronal ridge, at its highest point of 
elevation. Nothing, we think, is more evident 
to the observer, in tracing out the Kienuka 
plateau, than the evidences which exist of Lake 
Ontario having washed its northern edge, and 
driven its waters against its crowning wall of 
limestone. The fury of the waves, forced in to 
the line of junction, between the solid limestone 
and fissile sandstone, has broken up and removed 
the latter, till the overlying rock, pressed by its 
own gravity, has been split, fissured or otherwise 
disrupted, and often slid in vast solid masses 
down the ragged precipice. Kienuka offers one 
of the most striking instances of this action. 
The fissures made in the rock, by the partial 
withdrawal of its support, assume the size of 
cavern passages; they penetrate, in some in- 
stances, under other and unbroken masses of the 
superior stratum, and are, as a whole, curiously 
intersected, forming a vast reticulated area, in 
which large numbers of men could seek shelter 
and security. 

A, denotes the apex of this citadel of nature. 
At this point, heavy masses of the limestone 
rest, in part, upon the fissures, and serve as a 



212 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

covering. From these primary fissures, others, 
marked C C C C C, proceed. The distance from 
G to H is 227 paces. The cross fissure at I, 37 
paces. 

Most of these fissm*es, which extend in the 
general parallel of the brink, appear to have been 
narrow, and are now covered with the sod, or 
filled with earth and carbonaceous matter, which 
gives this portion of them the aspect of ancient 
trenches. D, denotes a small mound or barrow. 
E F, a brook, dry at midsummer. B, the site of 
an abandoned saw-mill, at the head of an an- 
cient lake inlet or gorge. The arrow head de- 
notes the site of habitations, which are marked 
by remains of pottery, pipes, and other evidences 
of the ancient rude arts of the occupants. The 
parallel dots at B mark the road, which, at this 
point, crosses the head of the gorge. Trees, of 
mature growth, occupy some portions of the 
brink of the precipice, extending densely east- 
ward, and obscure the view, which would other- 
wise be commanding, and fully justify the origin- 
al name. Directly in front, looking north, at 
the distance of seven or eight miles, extends the 
waters of Lake Ontario, at a level of several 
hundred feet below. The intermediate space, 
stretching away as far as the eye can trace it, 
east and west, is one of the richest tracts of 
wheat land in the state, cultivated in the best 
manner, and settled compactly, farm to farm. 
Yet such to tlie eye is the effect of the reserved 
woodlands on each farm, seen at this particular 



ARCHEOLOGY. 213 

elevation, that the entire area, to the lake shore, 
has the appearance of a rich, unbroken forest, 
whose green foliage contrasts finely with the 
silvery whiteness of the lake beyond. It requires 
the observer, however, at this time, to ascend the 
crown of the ridge, to realize this view in all its 
beauty and magnificence. 

ANCIENT BATTLE FIELD ON BUFFALO CREEK. 

The following sketch of the site of an ancient 
battle field, and vestiges of an entrenchment and 
fortification on the banks of the Deoseowa, con- 
veys an idea of the relative position of the several 
objects alluded to. Taken together they consti- 
tute the distinguishing feature in the archaeology 
of the existing Indian cemetery, mission station, 
and council house on the Seneca reservation, 
five or six miles south of the city of Buffalo. As 
such, the site is one of much interest, and well 
worthy of further observation and study. The 
time and means devoted to it, in the preparation 
of this outline, were less than would be desirable, 
yet they were made use of, under favorable cir- 
cumstances, as the current periodical business 
and deliberations of the tribe brought together a 
large part of them, including the chief persons 
of education and intelligence, as well as many 
aged persons who are regarded as the deposito- 
ries of their traditions and lore. 

Tradition, in which all concur, points out this 
spot as the scene of the last and decisive battle 
fought between the Senecas and their fierce and 



214 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

inveterate enemies the Kah-kwahs, a people who 
are generally but erroneously supposed to be the 
same as tKe Eries.* It is not proposed in this 
place, to consider the evidences on this point, or 
to denote the origin and events of this war. It 
is mainly alluded to as a historical incident con- 
nected with the site. It is a site around which 
the Senecas have clung, as if it marked an era 
in their national history; although the work 
itself was clearly erected by their enemies. It 
has been the seat of their government or council 
fire, from an early period of our acquaintance 
with them. It was here that Red Jacket uttered 
some of his most eloquent harangues against the 
steady encroachments of the white race, and in 
favor of retaining this cherished portion of their 
lands, and transmitting them with full title to 
their descendants. It was here that the noted 
captive, Dehewamis, better known as Mary 
Jernison, came to live after a long life of most 
extraordinary vicissitudes. And it is here that 
the bones of the distinguished orator, and the no 
less distinguished captive, rest, side by side, with 
a multitude of warriors, chiefs and sages. Nor 
can we, on natural principles of association, call 
in question the truthfulness or force of the stren- 
uous objections, which, for so many years, the 
whole tribe has opposed to the general policy of 
its sale. But these events are now history; the 
tribe has come into arrangements to remove to 

* This is a French pronunciation of a Wyandot or Huron 
term. Vide Hennepin, Amsterdam, ed. 169S. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



215 



reservations owned by their brethren, in more 
westerly parts of the state, and there will soon 
be no one left whose heart vibrates with the 
blood of a Seneca, to watch the venerated resting 
places of their dead. 




216 HISTORY OF THE IBOQUOIS. 

It was suitable, before the plough was put into 
these precints, and the last trench and mound of 
the tribe were obliterated, that some memorial 
of the locality should be preserved, and I can 
only regret that the labor itself has not been 
better or more successfully accomplished. 

A, denotes the site of the mission house ; B, 
of the council house; J), of the battle field, or 
that portion of it where the result was con- 
summated ; F, the grave yard. At C, there are 
still the remains of a mound, which tradition 
asserts was raised over the incinerated bodies 
of victor and vanquished slain in battle. These 
bodies were piled together, interspersed with 
the carcassesof deer and other game, which had 
been hunted with the special view that it might 
be offered as a sacrifice with the bodies, or to 
appease their spirits in the land of the dead. 
In making partial excavations into this mound, 
which has been frequently ploughed over in mo- 
dern times, I procured several partially charred 
or blackened bones, supposed to represent parts 
of the human and brute species ; a proof, it would 
seem, of the truth of this curious part of the tra- 
dition.* Mixed in the funeral pile, there were set 

* The Indian name of Buffalo creek, which giv-^es name to 
the city, has been variously written. In the treaty of 1784, 
at Fort Stanwix, it is called Tehoseroro7i, which is the 
Mohawk term, the final n being probably designed to convey 
a nasal sound. The word, as pronounced to me by the late 
Mrs. Carr of Wellington square, Canada, who was a daughter 
of the celebrated Brant, I have written Tehoseroro, meaning 
Place of the Linden tree. The letters d and t are inter- 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 217 

vessels of pottery, with drinks offered as libations 
to the dead. And it is certain, also, that pieces of 
reddish coarse pottery were obtained at the same 
time, in making these partial examinations. 

changeable between the Mohawks and Senecas. The latter, 
who at the same time do not use the letter r, and have some 
peculiarities in the use of the vowels, pronounce it in a man- 
ner which I thought should be written Deoseowa, as above. 
Mr. Wright, in his Mental Elevator and Seneca Spelling Book, 
makes it a word of four syllables, and uses the sound of y as 
heard in yonder, for the vowel e in his second syllable. 
Every practised ear is acute to satisfy its own requisitions of 
sound, which is not easy in unwritten languages; and there 
is besides a marked difference in the pronunciation of Indians 
from different localities, or uttered under different circum- 
stances. Mr. Ellicott, on his original plat of Buffalo, writes it 
TushiLivay. Others have spelt it still differently. The 
meaning of the word has excited but little difference of opinion. 
It denotes a locality of the hnden or basswood tree, a species 
found upon the rich bottom lands of this stream, whose bark 
was highlj^ valuable to these tribes for covering their lodges, 
and for the tough and fibrous inner coat, which at an early 
time served them to make both twine and ropes. 

Whence then, it may be asked, is the origin of the word 
Buffalo, since it is not found in the Indian term ? Tradition 
denotes that the range of this animal .once extended to the 
banks of the great lakes. There was a current opinion among 
the early travellers along the shores of Lake Erie, that the 
bison had been seen and killed on this creek. Whether the 
impression arose from, or was traceable, in part or wholly, to 
a deception of certain hunters in bringing in " other flesh," 
under the denomination of Buffalo meat, as has been said, it 
would be diflicult to determine. From whatever cause, it is 
certain that the stream acquired the popular name it now 
bears at an early day, whilst the aboriginal name was neg- 
lected. 

29 



218 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

The dotted lines are designed to show the 
probable figure and extent of the work, from 
the accounts of the Indians. That it was a cir- 
cular work, appears to be denoted by the only 
parts of the wall yet remaining, which are 
drawn in black. The site itself was elevated 
moderately above the plain. There is no reason 
to suppose that this elevation of the surface was 
artificial. The relative position of the creek is 
denoted by G. H, marks the position of a 
stone, which is connected with the history of 
their domestic arts, before the discovery of the 
country. It was not practicable to obtain ac- 
curate admeasurements of distances ; the design 
being merely to present a pencil sketch. 






CHAPTER VII. 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART IN NORTH 
AMERICA. 



To denote the state of art among- the abori- 
ginal race, it is necessary cJosely to examine 
such monuments of it, as exist. The word 
monument is used to denote any remains of 
art. Such are their relics in theform of worked 
shells and amulets, pottery, carved implements 
and utensils of stone, and other antiquarian re- 
mains found in their mounds, graves, fortifica- 
tions, and other places of ancient occupancy in 
our latitudes. Of architectural ruins in stone, 
which constitute so striking a portion of abori- 
ginal antiquities, in Central and South America, 
particularly in the ruins of their temples and 
teocalli, (the only form of such architecture in- 
deed, which survives,) we have no remains north 
of the latitude of the month of the Mississippi, 
unless they shall be disclosed in some of the 
large mounds yet unopened, or in portions of the 
country north of such a line, which yet remains 
unexplored, west of the extreme sources of the 
Red river and the Rio Del Norte. 



220 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

From this inquiry, we may peremptorily ex- 
clude all articles and remains of metal (not 
gold, silver or native copper), and all sculpture 
and inscriptions (not picture writing), which have 
been found and commented on, with an air of 
wonder, in various places, but which are one and 
all, undoubtedly of European, or to give the 
greatest scope to conjecture, of Trans- Atlantic 
origin. Such are, to begin with the highest 
object, the Grave creek inscription in apparently 
Celtiberic characters, the stone with a rude 
inscription in Roman letters and Arabic figures 
found in Onondaga county, and now deposited 
in the Albany Institute ; the amulets of coarse 
enamel, colored pastes and glass, of the imper- 
fect fabrics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries, found in Indian graves; or old village and 
fort sites, together with the flattened gun barrels, 
broken locks, artists' tools and other articles of 
iron, brass, or semi-vitrified earthenware, which 
are found over so considerable an extent of coun- 
try in western New York. The latter are, un- 
doubtedly, evidences of either earlier or more 
systematic attempts to settle, if not to found, 
colonies amongst the red race from abroad, than 
we are yet prepared fully to comprehend. But 
there need be no question as to the general era 
and character of art to which they belong; they 
are too clearly European in every instance to 
admit of scruple. 

The introduction of the fabrics of European 
art, among the tribes of this continent, had the 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART. 221 

inevitable and speedy effect to destroy the prior 
Indian arts. It is astonishing to find how soon 
the aborigines of our latitudes lost the art of 
making culinary vessels of clay ; of carving amu- 
lets and pipes out of steatites and other fissile 
mineral bodies; of perforating, dissecting and 
forming sea shells into the various shapes of 
wampum, gorgets, pendants, necklaces, belt and 
pouch ornaments, and other ornamental fabrics. 
They no sooner obtained the light brass, copper, 
iron, and tin kettle, than they laid aside the 
more clumsy and frail akeck, or clay pot ; their 
women, relieved from the labor of selecting and 
tempering the clay, and forming it into pots 
and dishes, Avere advanced one step in the art of 
housewifery, and took the first lesson in Euro- 
pean civilization. 

The maker of arrow and javelin heads, for 
this was a distinct art, was superseded by the 
superior efficacy of fire arms; and his red de- 
scendant at this day, as well as the gleaner of 
antiquities, is alike at a loss to find where the 
ancient artist in chert and hornstone procured 
his materials, of so suitable a quality and frac- 
ture, and how he obtained the skill to chip and 
form them into such delicate and appropriate 
patterns. The small and slender axe of iron, with 
a steel edge, and pipe head, at once took the 
place of the crescent shaped stone tomahawk, 
which had alone been appropriated to war; 
while the larger half-axe, so called, supplanted 
the clumsy stone agakwut, before employed rather 



222 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

as a gouge to detach coal in the process of felling 
trees by fire, than an axe proper. By the appli- 
cation of the common lathe and turning chisel, 
those species of thick sea shells, which the na- 
tives had, with so much labor, converted into 
seawan and wampum, were manufactured with 
such superior skill, expedition and cheapness, 
(although this is an article which the trader 
always held comparatively high) that the old 
Indian art of the wampum-maker, sunk, like that 
of the arrow-maker, never to be revived. But of 
all the exchanges made between civilized and 
savage life, the gift of the steel trap in replacing 
the Indian trap of wood, was the most eagerly 
sought and highly prized by the hunter, although 
it hastened the period of the destruction of the 
whole class of furred animals, and thus in effect, 
brought to a speedy close the Indian dominion. 
Pottery was an art known universally among 
all the tribes from Patagonia to the Arctic ocean, 
but was practised with very different degrees of 
skill. The northern tribes who bordered on the 
great lakes, and thence reached down to the 
Atlantic, made a rude article, which just answer- 
ed the simple purposes of the culinary art. The 
clay, or argillaceous material used for it, was 
such as is common to diluvial and tertiary soils. 
It was tempered with silex, in the form of 
pounded quartz, or often quartz and feldspar, as 
it exists in granite, in quite coarse particles. 
This mixture prevented shrinkage and cracks in 
drying, and enabled the mass to withstand the 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART. 223 

application of heat — an art which has resulted, 
and would very soon result, in any given case, 
from experience. There were no legs to the 
Indian akeek, or pot. It was designed to be 
used, to use a chemical phrase, as a sand bath. 
Being set on the ashes, a fire was built around 
it. It might also admit of suspension, by a 
bark cord tied below the lip, which flared out 
well, and thus could be attached to the ordinary 
Indian cooking tackle, namely, a long-legged 
tripod, tied at the top with bark. 

There is no evidence in the structure of any 
of this species of pottery, at least in these lati- 
tudes, that it had been raised or formed on a 
potter's wheel. The fact that prepared clay 
placed on a revolving horizontal circle, would 
rise by the centrifugal force, if resisted by the 
hand, or a potter's stick or former, was not 
known to these tribes ; although it is admitted 
to be one of the oldest arts in the world. Some 
skill was consequently required to form the 
mass and shape the vessel, without machinery. 
It was essential to its utility, and to prevent 
unequal shrinkage in drying, that the body 
should be of uniform thickness; and this art 
was also, if we may judge from fragments, and 
one or two entire vessels examined, very well 
attained. 

It is believed that this art, in this quarter, 
was in the hands of females; but every female 
or mistress of a lodge, was not adequate to it. 
It must have been the business of a class of 



224 HISTORY OF XHE IROQUOIS. 

persons in each village, who were professed pot- 
ters. Tradition says that it was the practice to 
mingle some blood in wetting and tempering 
the clay. 

It was impossible that this art, so rude and 
laborious, and so ill-suited to perform its offices 
when done, could survive and continue to be 
practised for any length of time after the tribes 
had been made acquainted with the products of 
the European potteries, rude as these were com- 
paratively speaking, in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries. 

Architecture, as it existed in the north and 
west, was confined, we may suppose, to earthen 
structures, crowned with wood, in the shape of 
beams and posts. And it is only as it exhibited 
a knowledge of geometry, in the combination of 
squares and circles, to constitute a work of de- 
fence, that it is deserving of notice. The know- 
ledge of the pyramid and its durability, is one 
of the most ancient geometrical discoveries in 
the world, and it is quite clear, in viewing the 
mounds and teocalli of North America, that the 
aborigines possessed, or had not forgotten it. 
In most of the works of defence, in the western 
country, the circular pyramid, or mound of earth 
of various sizes, formed a striking feature ; whilst 
in relation to the mounds used for religious cere- 
monies, as we must suppose the larger mounds 
to have been, its completeness of plan and exact 
truncation, parallel to the plain or basis, denotes 
the prevalence among them, of this ancient 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART. 



225 



architectural idea. We detect also, in a survey 
of the old works, the square, the parallelogram, 
the circle, and the ellipsis. And these figures 
were variously employed in the arrangement of 
masses of earth, to produce a rampart and a moat. 

The domestic economy required implements 
to perform the arts which we express by the 
words sewing and weaving. The awl and needle 
were made from various species of animal bones 
of the land and water. The larger awl used to 
perforate bark, in sewing together the sheathing 
of the northern canoe, made from the rind of the 
betula, was squared and brought to a tapering 
point. A very close grained and compact species 
of bone was employed for the fine lodge awl used 
for sewing dressed skins for garments. After 
this skin had been perforated, a thread of deer's 
sinew was drawn through, from the eye of a 
slender bone needle. There was, besides this, 
a species of shuttle of bone, which was passed 
backwards and forwards, in introducing the bark 
woof of mats and bags; two kinds of articles, 
the work of which was commonly made from 
the scirpus lacustris, or larger bulrush. It was 
only necessary to exhibit the square and round 
awl, and gross and fine needle of steel, to super- 
sede these primitive and rude modes of seam- 
stress-work and weaving. 

In an examination of Indian antiquarian arti- 
cles, taken from the graves and mounds, there 
is some glimmering of the art of design. There 
is no other branch of art to which we can refer 
30 



226 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the numerous class of carved ornaments and 
amulets, or their skill in symbolical or representa- 
tive drawing, evinced in their picture writing- 
Amulets, and neck, ear and head ornaments, 
constituted a very ancient and very important 
department in the arcanum of the Indian ward- 
robe. They were not only a part of the personal 
gear and decorations which our old British 
writers sometimes denote braveries, but they 
were connected with his superstitions, and were a 
part of the external system of his religion. The 
aboriginal man, who had never laid aside his 
oriental notions of necromancy, and believed 
firmly in witchcraft, wore them as charms. They 
were among the most cherished and valued arti- 
cles he could possibly possess. They were sought 
with great avidity, at high prices, and, after 
having served their office of warding off evil, 
while he lived, they were deposited in his grave 
at death. Bones, shells, carved stones, gems, 
claws and hoofs of animals, feathers of carnivo- 
rous birds, and above all the skin of the serpent, 
were cherished with the utmost care, and re- 
garded with the most superstitious veneration. 
To be decked with suitable amulets was to him 
to be invested with a charmed life. They added 
to his feeling of security and satisfaction in his 
daily avocations, and gave him new courage in 
war. 

But if such were the influence of pendants, 
shells, beads, and other amulets or ornaments, 
inspired by children who saw and heard, what 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART. 2::i7 

their parents prized, this influence took a deeper 
hold of their minds at and after the period of the 
virile fast, when the power of dreams and visions 
was added to the sum of their experimental 
knowledge of divine things, so to call them. To 
fix it still stronger, the Indian system of medi- 
cine, which admits the power of necromancy, 
lent its aid. And thus, long before the period 
which the civilized code has fixed on, to deter- 
mine man's legal acts, the aboriginal man was 
fixed, grounded and educated in the doctrine of 
charms, talismans, and amulets. 

To supply the native fabric in this particular 
branch, was more difficult. Christianity, in a \ 
large part of Europe, certainly all protestant 
Europe, had, in 1600, religiously discarded all 
such, and kindred reliances on amulets, from its 
ritual and popular observances, where they had 
taken deep root during the dark ages ; and hence 
the first English and Dutch voyagers and settlers 
who landed north of the capes of Florida, regard- 
ed the use of them as one of the strong evidences 
of the heathenishness of the tribes, and made 
light of their love of " beads and trinkets." It 
was necessary, however, to the success of their 
traffic and commerce — the great object of early 
voyages — that this class of articles should be 
noticed; and they brought from the potteries and 
glass houses of Europe various substitutes, in the 
shape of white, opaque, transparent, blue, black, 
and other variously colored beads, and of as 
many diverse forms as the genius of geometry 



228 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

could well devise. We see, what it is somewhat 
difficult as an inquiry of art otherwise to reach, 
that they also brought over a species of paste- 
mosaic, or curious oval, and elongated beads, 
made of a kind of enamel or paste, skilfully 
arranged in layers of various colors, which, 
viewed at their poles, represented stars, radii, or 
other figures. These were highly prized by the 
natives, (ignorant as they were of the manner 
of making them,) and were worn instead of the 
native amulets. In place of their carved pipes 
of steatite, or clay pipes ornamented with the 
heads of birds, men, or animals, they supplied 
them with a somewhat corresponding heavy, 
plain, or fluted pipe-bowl, which was designed, 
like the native article, to receive a large wooden 
stem, such as we see among the remote interior 
tribes at the present day. The jingling orna- 
ments of native copper, or deer hoofs, were re- 
placed from European work-shops, by the article 
of brass called hawks-bells, an article which, 
like that of wampum, still retains its place in 
the invoices of the Indian trade. 

But by far the most attractive class of fabrics 
which the commerce of Europe supplied in ex- 
change for their rich furs and peltries, was arm- 
bands, wrist-bands, ear-rings, gorgets, and other 
ornaments, both for the person and dress, of 
silver. This metal was esteemed, as it is at this 
day, above all others. Its color and purity led 
them to regard it as preeminently the noble 
metal, and its introduction at once superseded 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIAN ART. 229 

the cherished nabikoagnn antique, and other 
forms of medals and gorgets made from compact 
sea-shells. 

In this manner the introduction of European 
arts, one after another, speedily overturned and 
supplanted the ancient Indian arts, and trans- 
ferred them, at the end of but a few generations, 
from useful objects to the class of antiquities. 

It is unnecessary to pursue the subject to the 
department of clothing, in which woolens, cot- 
tons, linens and ribbons, took the place of the 
dressed skins of animals and birds, and the inner 
bark of trees, &c. Such objects are no part of 
the antiquities to be studied here. They are 
wholly perishable, and if any thing is to be 
gleaned from their study in the unburied cities 
of Pompeii and llerculaneum, where stone and 
marble offered objects of temporary resistance 
to currents of flowing lava, they offer no facts 
to guide the pen of the antiquarian here. The 
European and the Indian fabrics of the 16th 
century, have alike submitted to the inevitable 
laws of decomposition ; but were it otherwise, 
could we disinter from the Indian graves the 
first duffils, strouds, osnaburgs, and blankets, 
that were given to the race, they would only 
prove that the latter quickly laid aside the in- 
ferior when they could get the superior article. 
It would prove that guns and gunpowder, brass- 
kettles and iron axes, had caused the manufac- 
ture of stone darts and clay kettles to be thrown 
aside and forgotten, and in like manner the 



230 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

labors of the spindle and loom had given the 
Indian, even before Columbus descended to his 
grave, a new wardrobe. 

To denote what the Indian arts were, at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, we must 
resort to their tombs, mounds, and general ceme- 
teries. The melancholy tale that is told from 
the dust and bones of these sacred repositories is 
to be our teacher and schoolmaster. Its whis- 
pers are low and almost inaudible. There are 
pauses and lapses which it is difficult to make 
out. It requires great care — nice attention — 
examination and reexamination. We must not 
hastily compose the thread of the narrative. 
We must doubt and reject where doubt and re- 
jection are proper. We must discriminate the 
various epochs of art from the objects disinterred. 
If objects of various ages lie in the same ceme- 
teries we must not confound them. Carefully 
to labor, patiently to study, cautiously to con- 
clude, is the province of the antiquarian ; and 
if, after all, he has but little to offer, it is, per- 
haps, because there is but little to glean. 



CHAPTER VIII 



RELICS FOUND IN THE ANTIQUE GRAVES AND 
TUMULI OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



Nabikoaguna, (medals,) — Medaeka, (amulets,) — Attaje- 

GUNA, (implements, &C.,) OpOAGUNA, (piPES,) MlNACEA, 

(beads,) PeaGA, (wampums,) MuDWAMINA, I^JINGLING 

DRESS ORNAMENTS,) OtOAUGUNA, (EAR JEWELS,) — ^OcHALl- 

SA. (nose JEWELS,) JEf^A, (SHELLS, SHELL-COINS, ORNA- 
MENTS.) 

It will tend to render the work of antiquarian 
examination exact, and facilitate comparison, if 
names descriptive of the general classes and 
species of each object of archaeological inquiry 
be introduced. No science can advance if the 
terms and definitions of it be left vague. The 
mere inception of this design is here announced; 
it is not proposed, at present, to do more than 
submit a few specimens from a large number of 
antiquarian articles, the result of many years' 
accumulation. The figures and descriptions 
introduced are confined exclusively to the geo- 
graphical area under examination. 

To establish the classes of articles, names are 
introduced from the Indian vocabulary. These 



232 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

are qualified by specific terms, adjective or sub- 
stantive, fi-om the same class of languages, or 
from the English ; rarely from other sources. A 
nomenclature derived from such sources, appear- 
ed preferable for these simple objects of savage 
art, to one taken from the ancient languages, 
whose prerogative it has, so long, been, to furnish 
terms for science and art. 



CLASS 1. NABIKOAGUNA.* 
Objects of this kind were worn as marks of 
honor or rank. So far as known, they were 
constructed from the most solid and massy parts 
of the larger sea shells. Few instances of their 
having been made from other materials, are 
known, in our latitudes. The ruins and tombs 
of Central and South America have not been 
explored, so far as is known, with this view. 
Nor have any insignia of this character been 
found of stone. 

Nahikodguna Antique {Fig. 1). — This article is 
generally found in the form of an exact circle, 
rarely, a little ovate. It has been ground down 
and repolished, apparently, from the sea conch. 
Its diameter varies from three-fourths of an inch 
to two inches. Thickness, two-tenths in the 
centre, thinning out a little towards the edges. 
It is doubly perforated. It is figured on the face 
and its reverse, with two parallel latitudinal, and 
two longitudinal lines crossing in its centre, and 

* From the Algic, denoting a medal, a breast-plate or collar. 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



233 



dividing the area into four equa] parts. Its cir- 
cumference is marked with an inner circle, 
corresponding in widtli to the cardinal parallels. 




Fig. 1. 

Each division of the circle thus quartered, has 
five circles with a central dot. The latitudinal 
and longitudinal bands or fillets, have each four 
similar circles and dots, and one in its centre, 
making thirty-seven. The number of these cir- 
cles varies, however, on various specimens. In 
the one figured, they are fifty-two. The partial 
decomposition of the surface renders exactitude 
in this particular sometimes impossible. This 
article was first detected, many years ago, in a 
medal, one and a half inches diameter, found 
in an ancient grave on the Scioto, in Ohio, and 
was supposed to be a kind of altered enamel or 
earthernware. The structure of the shell is, 
however, present in all cases, in its centre. Its 
occurrence the present year, in the ancient fort 
grounds and cemeteries of Onondaga, identifies 
31 



234 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



/ the epochs of the ancient Indian settlements of 
I Ohio and western New York, and furnishes a 
I hint of the value of these investigations. A me- 
' dium specimen was examined, in the possession 
of I. Keeler, jr., Jamesville, very much oblite- 
rated ; another, of the minimum size, at James 
Gould's, Lafayette. The largest specimen seen, 
is one sent by J. V. H. Clarke, from Manlius. The 
Indians have no traditions of the wearing of this 
species of shell medal, so far as known. It must 
be referred to the era preceding the discovery. 




Fie 



Nabikodguna Iroquois {Fig. 2). — This article 
consists of a metal, which is apparently an alloy. 
It is slightly ovate, and is perlbrated in the rim, 
so as to have been hung transversely. Its 
greatest diameter is two and four-tenths inches. 
There are no traces of European art about it, 
unless the apparent alloy be such. Locality, 
valley of Genesee river. • 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



235 





Fig. 3. 

Nahikodguna Cameo {Figs. 3, 4). — This well 
sculptured article, was discovered in the valley 
of the Kasonda creek, Onondaga county. The 
material is a compact piece of sea shell. It still 
possesses, in a considerable degree, the smooth- 
ness and lustre of its original finish. Fig. 4 
shows the prominence of the features in profile. 
At the angles of the temples are two small 
orifices, for suspending it around the neck. The 
entire article is finished with much skill and 
delicacy (Mifflin Gould). 




Nahikodguna Mnemonic (Fig. 5). — This is the 
head of an infant represented in the fine red 
pipe-stone from the Missouri. Locality, site of 
the ancient fort of the Kasonda valley (/. Keeler, 
junior). 



CLASS II. MEDAEKA. 
This class comprises the amulets proper. All 
the objects comprehended by it are supposed to 



236 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOTS. 



have been worn on various parts of the person, 
as a defence against witchcraft, sorcery, or spells, 
or to propitiate good luck by superstitious means. 




Fig. 6. 

Meddeka Missouric {Fig. 6), with the illustra- 
tion of the manner of its being worn on the 
breast. This article varies moderately in length, 
breadth and figure. It is generally the frustrum 
of an acute pyramid, perforated in its length, to 
admit being suspended from the neck, or ears. 
The figure exhibited is three inches in length by 
two-tenths in breadth at its superior, and nine- 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



237 



tenths at its inferior extremity. Sometimes, as 
in the figure given, it has a raised surface in the 
direction of the perforation. It is formed of the 
red pipe-stone of the Coteau du Prairie, west of 
the Mississippi ; and its disinterment from Indian 
graves in western New York, denotes an early 
traffic or exchange of the article, or rather the 
material of its construction, with the tribes in 
that quarter. This stone is fissile, and easily 
cut or ground by trituration with harder sub- 
stances to any figure. It bears a dull gloss, not 
a polish, which was produced by rubbing the 
surface with the equisitum, or rush, which has 
a silicious gritty surface. It is of the period 
anterior to the introduction of European arts. 
The specimen figured is from Onondaga county 
(/. V. H. Clarke). It occurred also at Oswego, 
in removing the elevation of the old fort (/. 
McNiel). Also, at Lower Sandusky, Ohio (L. 
Cass). 




Fis. s. 



Medchka Dental {Figs. 7, 8). — Fossil specimens 
of the bear's tooth. A power against charms or 



238 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. . 

spells was often attributed to amulets of this 
kind. The two species, very different in size, 
and of .course the age of the animal, were ob- 
tained from a single grave. Valley of the Gene- 
see river (Miss E. Trowbridge). 




Fi-. 9. 



Meddeka Okun {Fig. 9). — This species is made 
from a compact kind of bone, squared and per- 
forated. Valley of the Genesee river {Miss. E. 
Trowbridge). From an ancient grave. 



CLASS III. ATTAJEGUNA.* 

Under this class are grouped a great variety 
of implements and instruments of utility, war, 
hunting and diversion. The material is chiefly 
stone. Without plates, however, it is impossi- 
ble to give that exactitude to the description of 
this numerous class of antiquarian remains 
which is desired. But a single figure has been 
prepared — Attajeguna Deoseowa. This relic of 
Indian art was pointed out to me by Mr. Wright, 
missionary on the Seneca reservation, near the 

* From the Alo;onqnin jeegun, an instrument, an imple- 
ment, or an}' artificial contrivance, or invention. 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



239 



city of Buffalo. It consists of a block of lime- 
stone, having two spherical basin-shaped depres- 




Attajeguna Deoscowa. Fig. 10. 

sions. It is the tradition of this people that in this 
ancient mortar, the female potters of olden time 
pounded the stone material with which they 
tempered the clay for the ancient akeek, or cook- 
ing vessel. The original stone had been broken. 
From the portion of which the annexed is a 
figure, the entire mass must have been one of 
considerable weisrht. 



CLASS IV. OPOAGUNA. 

The class of antique pipes. Smoking pipes 
constitute a branch of Indian art, which called 
forth their ingenuity by carvings of various forms 
of steatite, serpentine, indurated clay, limestone, 
sandstone and other bodies. A very favorite 
material was the red sedimentary compact de- 
posit, found on the high dividing ridge between 



240 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



the Missouri and Mississippi, called the Coteau 
du Prairie. Pipes were also made from clay, 
tempered with some silicious or felspathique 
material, similar to that used in their ancient 
earthenware. 




Fig. 11. 



Opoaguna Algonquin {Fig. 11). — The compo- 
sition of this pipe is a compact brown clay, tem- 
pered with a fine silicious matter, and dried in 
the sun, not baked in a potter's oven. The ex- 
terior is stained black, and bears a certain gloss, 
not a glazing. The bowl has been formed by 
hand, and is rude. The principal point of skill 
is evinced in the twist ornamenting the exterior 
of the bowl. Locality, Genesee river valley. 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 241 




Fig. 12. 

Opoaguna Aztec (Fig. 12). — The material is a 
species of terra cotta, or reddish earthenware. 
Its fracture discloses very minute shining parti- 
cles, which appear to be mica. Probably the 
ingredient used to temper the clay, was pounded 
granite. The features resemble, very strikingly, 
those of Mexico and Central America. Onon- 
daga county. 




Opoaguna Iberic {Fig. 13). — Material, a slate 
colored ware. Features, thin and sharp. Neck, 
32 



242 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



acute in front, with an angular line extending 
from the chin downwards. Onondaga. 




,<il*vJ 



Fi?. 14. 



Opoaguna Etruscan {Fig. 14). — Material similar 
to Opoag. Aztec. Figure double headed — heads 
alike, placed back to back, like the Grecian deity- 
Janus, connected by five parallel fillets, — bowl 
rudely formed, by hand. Onondaga. 



CLASS V. MINACEA.* 

Articles of this kind hold the relative charac- 
ter of modern beads or necklace ornaments. 
They are niade of shells, bones, fissile minerals, 
sometimes pieces of calcareous or crystal. The 

* From wee?z, a berry; and ace, a diminutive; hence mi- 
nas or minace, a bead, or an ornament for the neck. 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 243 . 

substitutes of the European period are glass and 
pastes. 




Fig. 15. 

Minacea AUeghanic {Fig. 15). — This article 
was first disclosed on opening the Grave-creek 
mound, in the Ohio valley, in 1839, and received 
the false designation of ivory. It is figured 
and described in the first volume of the Trans- 
actions of the American Ethnological Society, 
published at New York in 1845, where its cha- 
racter is determined. It has often the appear- 
ance of having been formed of solid masses of 
horn. It is believed to be, however, in every 
case, a product of massy sea-shell. Decompo- 
sition gives its surface a dead white aspect and 
limy feel. The powder scraped from the surface 
effervesces in acids. It is generally, not uni- 
formly, an exact circle, and resembles extremely 
a very thick horn button-mould. It is charac- 
teristic of the orifice, that it appears to have been \ 
perforated with an instrument giving a spiral or 
circular line. This ancient ornament was also 
disclosed in my visit to the Beverly bone deposits 
of Canada in 1843. Its occurrence, in Onon- 
daga, denotes the universality of the art, during 
the Ante-European period. 



244 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

CLASS VI. PEAGA.* 
The ancient species of this article are nume- 
rous, and not exchisively confined to sea shells. 
The Indian cemeteries denote it in the form 
of bone and mineral. 



Fig. 16. 

Peiiga lowan (Fig. 16). — The material in this 
species is the red pipe stone of the west, so much 
valued. It is perforated longitudinally, and was 
evidently worn about the neck and breast like 
the modern article of wampum. 



CLASS Vll. MUDWAMINA. 

Ornament alone appears to have been the ob- 
ject of this numerous class of remains. Gene- 
rally the object was the production of a jingling 
sound in walking. It was generally used to 
decorate some part of the dress. It assumed a 
great variety of shapes, and was made from as 
many species of material, including native cop- 
per. Another object was to inspire fear by the 
tread. 

* From peag, one of the sea-coast terms of the Algonquins, 
for wampum. 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



245 




Fig. 17. 



Mudwamina Miskivabic* {Fig. 17). — The article 
figured is three-fourths of an inch in length, bell 
shaped, and composed of native copper, beat 
very thin. Onondaga. 




Fig. 18. 



Mudwamina Ossinicf (Fig. 18). — Material, red 



pipe stone, perforated. 



Onondaga. 




19. Sill 



Mudwcimina Wassdahic {Fig. 19). — Material, a 
crystal, perforated. Traces of its irridescence. 
Probably a crystal of strontian. Onondaga. 



* Copper. 



t Stone. 



246. 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



CLASS VIII. OTOAUGUNA. 
The name is derived from Otowug, meaning 
implements of, or relating to, the ear. It is a 
noun inanimate in a. Under this head all pen- 
dants and ornaments for the ear are comprised. 




Fig. 20. 

Otoauguna Statuesque (Fig. 20). — This pendant 
for the ear is made out of sea shell. It bears 
eight perpendicular and four transverse dots. 
Locality, old fort, site near Jamesville. Onon- 
daga. 




Fig. 21. 

Otoauguna Pyramidal {Fig. 21). — This article 
varies in size, in the specimens examined, from 
nine-tenths to one and five-tenths inch, in the 
greatest length. It is an inequilateral triangle, 
generally, as here shoAvn, varying to a very acute 



ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 



247 



truncated prism reversed. Thickness from four 
to six lines. Perforated. Material, red pipe 
stone. Locality, Onondaga county. 




f isr. 22. 



Otoauguna Bifurcate {Fig. 22). — Length eight- 
tenths inch. Perforated. Red pipe stone. On- 
daga county. 




Fig. 23. 



Otoauguna Quadralateral (Fig. 23). — Material 
red pipe stone. Onondaga county. 



CLASS IX. OCHALISA* 
This class of ornaments were worn as pendants 
from the inner cartilage of the nose. The mate- 
rial of nose jewels in modern times, when worn, 
is, generally, silver or some metal. Anciently 
bone or shell were the chief substances. 

* From the Shawanoe word ockahs, a nose. 



248 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 




Ochalisa Odd-d* {Fig. 24). — The material is a 
part of some massy species of sea shell. The 
outer coating is partially decomposed, exhibit- 
ing an opaque, limy appearance. Length, eight- 
tenths of an inch — rounded, heart-shaped. On- 
ondaga (/. V. H. Clarke). 



CLASS X. ^SA.t 
The number and variety of sea, and sometimes 
fresh water shells, worn by the ancient aborigi- 
nes, has not been ascertained, but is large. 
They are uniformly found to be univalves. 



Fig. 25. 

^sa Marginella {Fig. 25). — This species was 
first detected in the Grave-creek mound. It is 
a marginella. The figure is, incidentally, inex- 
act. Onondaga. 

* Heart-shaped, or like. 

t iEsa, a generic name for a shell — Algonquin. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ORAL TRADITIONS OF THE IROQUOIS, HISTORI- 
CAL AND IMAGINATIVE. 



Ancient Shipwreck of a Vessel on the N. A. Coast — 
Forays into the Country of the Cherokees and Ca- 
TABAS — Exploit of Hiadeoni — Seneca Embassy of Peace 
TO the Cherokees, and Heroic Exploit of Awl — Grave 
yakd Serpent, and Corn Giant — Tradition of the Siege 
of Fort Stanwix — Tradition of the defeat of the 
Kah-kwahs — Epoch of the Confederacy — Some Pas- 
sages OF their Wars with Monsters and Giants — 
The Iroquois Quetzalcoatl. 

This department of the inquiry constitutes one 
of deep and varied interest. It is found, however, 
that no little time is required to study, compare 
and arrange such parts of the matter as have 
claims to be considered historical, whilst those 
which are symbolical or fictitious, take so wide 
a range as hardly to justify, in this essay, the 
space which they would occupy. Specimens 
drawn from both classes of matter are introduced 
in the following papers, which, together with 
those inserted under the first head of Inquiries, 
will serve to convey a proper idea of this species 
of lore. 

33 



250 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



ANCIENT SHIPWRECK ON THE COAST. 

Whilst the northern tribes lived under the 
ancient confederacy before named, on the banks 
of the St. Lawrence and its waters, and before 
they had yet known white men, it is affirmed by 
Cnsick, that a foreign ship came on the northern 
coasts, but being driven by stress of weather, 
passed southward, and was wrecked in that 
quarter. Most of the crew perished, but a few 
of them, dressed in leather, reached the shore, 
and were saved with some of their implements. 
They were received by a people called the Fal- 
cons,* who conducted them to a mountain, 
where, however, they remained but a short time, 
for their allies, the Falcons, disclosed an unfriend- 
ly and jealous spirit, and threatened them. In 
consequence they immediately selected another 
location, which they fortified. Here they lived 
many years, became numerous and extended 
their settlements, but in the end, they were de- 
stroyed by furious nations. 

This tradition is divested of some of the sym- 
bolic traits which it possesses in the original, 
and by which the narrators may be supposed to 
have concealed their own acts of hostility or 
cruelty, in the extirpation of the descendants of 
the Europeans thus cast on their shores. To 
this end, they represent in the original, the 

* One of the totems and clans of the Iroquois, is the hawk, 
or falcon. 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 251 

saving of the crew to have been done through 
the instrumentality of carnivorous birds, and 
attribute the final destruction of the colony to 
fierce animals. It is one of the well known facts 
of history that none of the vessels of Columbus, 
Cabot, Verrizani, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Hudson, 
were wrecked on the American coasts ; and there 
is hence a bare presumption that some earlier 
voyage or adventure from the old world is alluded 
to. 

Can we suppose that in this dim tradition there 
is light cast on the lost colony of Virginia, which 
was first left on the island of Roanoke ? The 
Tuscaroras,* who preserve the tradition, came 
to western New York from that quarter. They 
were a fierce, powerful and warlike nation, 
having in 1712 resolved on the massacre, on a 
certain day, of all the whites in the Carolinas. 
What is once done by natives, barbarous or 
civilized, is often the reproduction of some prior 
national act, and especially if that act had been 
attended with success; and it is by no means 
improbable that in this desperate and bloody 
resolve of 17 J 2, the Tuscaroras meant to repeat 
the prior tragedy of Croatan.f Whether, how- 
ever, the incident be of Ante-Columbian or Post- 
Columbian date, it is worthy preservation, and 
may be assigned its place and proper importance 
when we have gleaned more facts from the dark 
abyss of American antiquity. 

* This tribe have also the clan of the hawk or falcon, 
t Vide Hackluit. 



252 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

FORAYS INTO THE COUNTRY OF THE CHERO- 
KEES AND CATABAS. 

Nothing is more distinct or better settled in 
the existing traditions of the Iroquois, than their 
wars with some of the southern tribes, particu- 
larly the Cherokees. I found this subject first 
alluded to among the Oneidas, who were hotly 
engaged in this southern war ; afterwards among 
the Onondagas, the Senecas of Tonawanda, the 
Tuscaroras, and with still increasing particu- 
larity, among the Senecas of Bufialo, Cattarau- 
gus, and Teonigono. But I was never able to 
fix the era of its commencement, or to find an 
adequate cause for it. It seems almost incredi- 
ble that a war of this kind should have been 
carried on, at such a great distance from their 
central council fire at Onondaga, yet nothing is 
better established in their reminiscences. 

They first came into contact, as Tetoyoah told 
me was his opinion, in the western prairies. The 
Iroquois are known to have hunted and warred 
far and wide in that quarter. The two nations 
seem to have been deeply and mutually exaspe- 
rated. Tetoyoah spoke of an act of horrid 
treachery, the breaking of a peace pledge, and 
the murder of a peace deputation. 

The war, however, instead of calling out the 
banded energies of the confederacy, appears to 
have been almost entirely one of a partizan cha- 
racter. It is memorable rather for partial en- 
terprises and personal exploits, than for exhibit- 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 253 

in^ the grander features of the military policy of 
the Iroquois. Warriors tested their bravery and 
heroism by going against the Cherokees. There 
were, it seems, no great armies, no grand battles. 
All was left to individual energy and courage. 
The great object of every young Iroquois, as soon 
as he was old enough to take the war path, was 
to go against the Cherokees. A march from the 
Oneida stone, the Kasonda creek, or the Genesee 
valley, to the southern Alleghanies, was regarded 
as a mere excursion or scouting trip. This long 
journey was performed without provisions, or 
any other preparation than bows, arrows and 
clubs. The fewer there were in one of these 
partizan enterprises, the greater was their chance 
of concealment and success. They relied on 
the forest for food. Thousands of miles Avere 
not sufficient to dampen their ardor, and no time 
could blot out their hatred. They called the 
Cherokees, by way of derision, We-yau-dah, and 
0-yau-dah, meaning a people who live in caves. 
These are the terms I found to be in use for the 
Cherokee nation, in 1845. 

EXPLOIT OF HIADEONI. 
The following incident in the verbal annals of 
Iroquois hardihood and heroism, was related to 
me by the intelligent Seneca, Tetoyoah (William 
Jones of Cattaraugus), along with other remin- 
iscences of the ancient Cherokee wars. The 
Iroquois thought life was well lost, if they could 
gain glory by it. 



254 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Hi-a-de-o-7ii, said he, was the father of the 
late chief Young King. He was a Seneca war- 
rior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and 
swiftness of foot, and had established his repu- 
tation for courage and skill, on many occasions. 
He resolved, while the Senecas were still living 
on the Genesee river, to make an incursion alone 
into the country of the Cherokees. He plumed 
himself with the idea, that he could distinguish 
himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared 
for it, according to the custom of warriors. They 
never encumber themselves with baggage. He 
took nothing but his arms, and the meal of a 
little parched and pounded corn.* The forest 
gave him his meat. 

Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Chero- 
kee country in safety and alone. He waited for 
evening before he entered the precincts of a vil- 
lage. He found the people engaged in a dance. 
He watched his opportunity, and when one of 
the dancers went out from the ring into the 
bushes, he despatched him with his hatchet. In 
this way he killed two men that night, in the 
skirts of the woods, without exciting alarm, and 
took their scalps and retreated. It was late 
when he came to a lodge, standing remote from 
the rest, on his course homeward. Watching 
here, he saw a young man come out, and killed 
him as he had done the others, and took his 
scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously, he 

* One tablespoonfiil of this mixed with sugar and water 
will sustain a warrior twenty-four hours without meat. 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 255 

saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of 
finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve 
him on his way home. 

While tlius busied in searching the lodge, he 
heard footsteps at the door, and immediately 
threw himself on the bed from which the young 
man had risen, and covered his face, feigning 
sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his 
last victim's mother. She, supposing him to be 
her son, whom she had a short time before left 
lying there, said, " My son, I am going to such 
a place, and will not be back till morning." He 
made a suitable response, and the old woman 
went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew 
nothing till morning, when the first thing he 
heard was the mother's voice. She, careful for 
her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling 
some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after 
putting them out, and telling him she left them 
for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up 
instantly, and fled ; but the early dawn had re- 
vealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. 
Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded 
in reaching and concealing himself in a remote 
piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then 
pursued his way towards the Genesee, which, in 
due time he reached, bringing his three Chero- 
kee scalps as trophiesof his victory and prowess. 

Such are the traditionary facts which are yet 
repeated by the Iroquois, to console their na- 
tional pride in their decline. The incident re- 
minds one strongly of the class of daring personal 



256 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

deeds of the noted Adirondack, Piskaret, as re- 
lated by Golden ; and it demonstrates how soon 
the daring traits of one ruling tribe may be adopt- 
ed and even surpassed by another. 

The Tonawandas, who are Senecas, appear to 
have preserved more distinct recollections of the 
origin of this war. Hohoeeyuh, (J. A. Sandford) 
stated to me, as did Tetoyoah, that it originated 
from the contact of their hunting parties on the 
plains of the southwest. But the latter affirms, 
that the Cherokees were the original offenders, by 
robbing and plundering a Seneca hunting party, 
and taking away their skins. Retaliation ensued . 
Tragic scenes of surprise and treachery soon fol- 
lowed. The Five Nations took up the matter in 
all their strength. They, contrary to what is 
above intimated, raised large war parties, and 
marched through the country to the Cherokee 
borders, and brought away scalps and prisoners. 
There are now, he added, descendants of the 
Cherokees in the third degree living on the Ton- 
awanda reservation. Le Fort, an Onondaga 
chief, speaking on the same subject, said that 
there was, some years ago, a chief of pure Chero- 
kee blood, by father and mother, living among 
them. He had been taken captive when a mere 
child. The fact being revealed to him after he 
had obtained the chieftancy, he went to seek his 
relatives in the south, and to live and die among 
them ; but after every inquiry, he was unable to 
find them. The memory of the event of his loss 
was forgotten. He lingered a time, and then 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 257 

came back to the Senecas, and died among them 
— an example of that severe principle in the 
policy of this people, which has been before re- 
ferred to, under the term of We-hait-wa-tsha, that 
is, flesh cut in pieces, and scattered amongst 
the tribes. 

Iroquois tradition on this subject is the same 
now that it was in 1794. During this year, the 
interpreters told Col. Timothy Pickering, who 
was a commissioner on the part of the United 
States, that there were then living, warriors of 
the Six Nations, who had marched the whole 
distance to the Cherokee country, and attacked 
the latter. In proof of the former wars, they 
showed him a chief, who was a native Chero- 
kee, born in the Cherokee country, who had 
been captured when a boy, and invested with 
this honor in mature life by the Senecas.* 
While the foregoing tradition of living Iroquois 
is strengthened by this coincidence, we are, at 
the same time, furnished by the latter with a 
proof that the Iroquois policy was favorable to 
the ris^ of talent and bravery, and that whatever 
be the checks provided by the totemic system, 
on the descent of chiefs, the elective feature was 
ever strongly marked upon their entire govern- 
ment and policy. 



* Yates and Moulton, p. 232. 
34 



258 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

DARING FEAT OF A SENECA. 

In the course of the long and fierce war be- 
tween the Six Nations and the Cherokees, it 
happened, said Oliver Silverheels, that eight 
Senecas determined to go on an embassy of 
peace. Among them was Little Beard the elder, 
and Jack Berry. They met some Cherokees on 
the confines of the Cherokee territories, to whom 
they imparted their object. Intelligence of this 
interview was sent forward to their village, 
where the embassadors were duly received, and 
after this preliminary reception, they were in- 
troduced to the ruling chiefs, and favorably re- 
ceived by the Cherokee council. 

All but one of the Cherokee chiefs agreed to 
the terms of peace. He also would consent, if, 
prior to the treaty, the eight Seneca delegates 
would first consent to go to war against their ene- 
mies, situated south of them. (Who their enemies 
were is not mentioned.) They consented, and 
set out with a war party. A fight ensued in 
which the leader of the Senecas, called A^l, was 
taken prisoner. The other seven escaped. The 
fate of AavI was decided in the enemy's camp, 
where it was determined that he should be burned 
at the stake. Preparations were made for this 
purpose, but as they were about to bind him, 
he claimed the privilege of a warrior, to sing his 
death song and recite his exploits by striking the 
post. Pleased with the spirit of his request, and 
his noble air and words, his suit Avas granted, 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 259 

and they put a tomahawk into his hands, that 
lie might go through the ceremony. He began 
by relating his exploits in the north. He recited 
his feats against the western Indians, adding, 
with the usual particularity, times and places, 
and the number of scalps taken. They were 
pleased and interested in these recitals, and 
quite forgot the prisoner, in the warrior. At 
last he came to the late battle, in which he was 
taken. He told how many of the Catabas, Apa- 
laches, or Muscogees (if these were the tribes) 
he had killed. He kindled with redoubled ardor 
as he struck the post with his tomahawk, ex- 
claiming, " so many of your own people, I have 
killed," and suiting his actions to his words, "so 
many I will yet kill." With this he struck 
down two men, bounded through the ring and 
ran. Consternation, for a moment, prevented 
pursuit, which gave him a start. Being swift 
of foot he outran his pursuers, eluded them in 
the woods, and reached the Cherokee camp, 
where he found and joined his seven companions. 
They concluded the peace, and returned in 
safety to the Seneca country. 

GRAVE YARD SERPENT, AND CORN GIANT. 

Seneca tradition states that they formerly lived 
on the Chippewa river, near Niagara falls, Cana- 
da. One year, while thus located, they were 
visited by a calamitous sickness, and their corn 
was blighted. Their prophet dreamt, one night, 
that a great serpent laid under the village, with 



260 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

his head to the grave yard, and that it devoured 
all the bodies buried. This gave a most offen- 
sive breath, which Avas the cause of the sickness. 
He also dreamt that there was a great giant 
under the cornfield, who ate up the corn. 

When he revealed these dreams to the chiefs, 
they determined to abandon the town, and im- 
mediately removed to Buffalo creek. The ser- 
pent soon followed them, and entered the mouth 
of the creek, but the Great Spirit, whose especial 
favorites they ever were, sent lightning to de- 
stroy it. The monster, however, proceeded up 
the stream, until the arrows from above fell so 
thick, that he was obliged to turn. His great 
size made him press against the shores, and 
break off the ground, and this is the cause of 
the expanse of the river three miles above its 
mouth. Before he reached the mouth of the 
stream, however, the arrows had cut him apart, 
and thus they escaped this scourge. 

When they went back to visit their old town 
on the Chippewa river, they found the giant who 
had eaten up the corn, hanging by one leg from 
the crotch of a high lodge pole, with his body 
on the ground, lie was very meagre, and had 
very long and thin legs, with scarcely any flesh 
on them (fV. I. C. Hosmer). 

If the above is to be regarded as an allegory 
of sickness and famine, it would have put Greek 
fancy to the task, to have concentrated the mat- 
ter in a smaller compass, or to have exhibited it 
in a more striking light. 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 26 L 

SIEGE OF FORT STANWIX AND BATTLE OF 
ORISKANY. 

Seneca tradition is rife on this subject. Te- 
toyoali says that they lost thirty-three chiefs in 
the battle of Oriskany. 

Jacob Blacksnake adds, that he has seen a 
book in which it was stated that the Senecas 
had burned eight officers taken at this battle, in 
revenge for their losses. This he contradicts, on 
the authority of his father, Governor Blacksnake, 
who was there. The officers had been asked 
for after the battle, by the British, for the purpose 
of being rescued, but they were refused by the 
Indians, on account of their great losses. They 
were not, however, burned at the stake. It was 
decided that they should run the gauntlet, and 
they were killed by clubs, &c., in this ordeal. 

DEFEAT OF THE KAH-KWAHS ON BUFFALO 
CREEK. 

Some of the Senecas affirm, that it is ninety 
years since the battle with the Kah-kwahs, on 
the site of the grave yard, on the Buffiilo creek 
reservation, was fought. This would place the 
event in 1755, a date so modern, and so well 
known, in our colonial history, as to prove what 
a poor figure they make in attempts to adjust 
chronology. If 190 years (and, perhaps, such 
should be the tradition,) be taken, the event (al- 
lowing two years for their defence) would as- 
sume the precise time (1655) indicated for it, by 



262 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

one of Le Moyne's missionary letters, in which 
he says, that the war with the Eries had broken 
out afresh in 1653. 

ERA OF THE CONFEDERATION. 
There is a tradition among portions of the Se- 
necas, that the present confederation took place 
four years before Hudson sailed up the river 
bearing his name. This gives A. D. 1605. This 
question has been examined in its general bear- 
ings in a prior paper. All other authorities indi- 
cate an earlier date. The traditions of the Onon- 
dagas, as recorded in the account hereafter in- 
serted, under the head of Quetzalcoail, refer 
to the earliest period of their national existence, 
and render probable, a remark before made 
(vide Iroquois Groupe), that the last confedera- 
tion was but the reconstruction of preceding 
ones, and that the idea of it was by no means 
new to them. 

TRADITIONS OF WARS WITH MONSTERS, GIANTS 
AND SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA. 

It is proposed to narrate a few passages of 
their early wars with monsters and giants, the 
two prominent objects in the foreground of their 
traditions. If it be thought, in perusing them, 
that mythology and superstition mingle too freely 
with real events or actions, to which the mind 
makes no exception, that is a matter upon which 
we have nothing to offer. Let it rather be con- 
sidered as a proof of the authenticity of the nar- 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 263 

rat ive ; for certainly there could be no stronger 
indication of a contrary character, than to find 
the Indian narrator relating a clear, consistent 
chain of indisputable facts and deductions to fill 
up the foreground of his history. What is said 
of such creations tallies admirably with their be- 
lief, at the present day, and harmonizes with 
itself, and with that state of proud heathendom, 
adventurous idolatry, and wild and roving inde- 
pendence, in which they lived. Who but an 
Aonaod ? who but an Iroquois ? could enact such 
a part, or believe that his ancestors ever did ? 
To be great, and admired and feared, they roved 
over half America in quest of beasts and men. 
Surely, the man should be allowed to tell his 
own story in his own way, with all the witch- 
craft and spiritcraft he has a mind to bring to 
bear upon it. 

No people in the world have ever, probably, 
so completely mingled up and lost their early 
history, in fictions and allegories, types and 
symbols, as the red men of this continent. Mak- 
ing no sort of distinction themselves, between 
the symbolic and the historical, they have left 
no distinctions to mark the true from the false. 
Their notions of a deity, founded, apparently, 
upon some dreamy tradition of original truth, 
are so subtile and divisible, and establish so 
heterogeneous a connection, between spirit and 
matter, of all imaginable forms, that popular be- 
lief seems to have wholly confounded the pos- 
sible with the impossible, the natural with the 



264 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

supernatural. Action, so far as respects cause 
and effect, takes the widest and wildest range, 
through the agency of good or evil influences, 
which are put in motion alike for noble or ignoble 
ends — alike by men, beasts, devils or gods. See- 
ing some things mysterious and wonderful, he 
believes all things mysterious and wonderful ; a nd 
he is afloat, without shore or compass, on the 
wildest sea of superstition and necromancy. He 
sees a god in every phenomenon, and fears a 
sorcerer in every enemy. Life, under such a 
system of polytheism and wild belief, is a con- 
stant scene of fears and alarms. Fear is the 
predominating passion, and he is ready, wherever 
he goes, to sacrifice at any altar, be the sup- 
posed deity ever so grotesque. When such a 
man comes to narrate events, he stops at nothing, 
be it ever so gross or puerile. He relates just 
what he believes, and unluckily he believes 
every thing that can possibly be told. A beast, 
or a bird, or a man, or a god, or a devil, a stone, 
a serpent, or a wizzard, a wind or a sound, or a 
ray of light — these are so many causes of action, 
which the meanest and lowest of the series, may 
put in motion, but which shall, in his theology 
and philosophy, vibrate along the mysterious 
chain through the uppermost skies; and life or 
death may, at any moment, be the reward or the 
penalty. If there be truth mingled in the man's 
narrations, as there sometimes is, it must be 
judged of by the lights of reason, common sense, 
science, sound philosophy, and religion. It is a 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 265 

Gordian knot for the modern historian to untie ; 
or it is a mass of traditionary chaff, from which 
we may perhaps, winnow a few grains of wheat. 
Herodotus had, probably, just such materials to 
work upon, and he made the best possible use 
of them, by letting the events stand as they 
w^ere given, without exercising any inductive 
faculty upon them, or telling us the Avhy and the 
wherefore ; or if he ever deviates from the rule, 
as in the case of the fishes descending the Nile, 
it is a species of labor which might as well have 
been omitted."^ 

By the figure of a long house, the Iroquois 
meant to denote the confederated frame work 
of the league; by a great tree planted, they 
symbolized its deep seated natural power, one in 
blood and lineage, and its overshadowing in- 
fluence and permanency. To assail such a com- 
bination of stout hearts, nature, they thought, 
must send forth the stoutest and most appali ng 
objects of her creation. 

The first enemy that apeared to question their 
power, or disturb their peace, was the fearful 
phenomenon of Ko-nea-rau-neh-neh, or the fly- 
ing heads. These heads were enveloped in a 
beard and hair, flaming like fire ; they were of 
monstrous size, and shot through the air with 
the velocity of meteors. Human power was not 
adequate to cope with them. The priests pro- 

* It was designed, when these preliminary remarks were 
penned, to add some wilder legends than are here presented, 
which are, at present, withheld. 
35 



266 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

nounced them an emanation of some mysterious 
influence, and it remained with the priests alone 
to exorcise them by their arts. Drum, and rattle, 
and incantation, were deemed more eflective 
than arrow or club. One evening, after they 
had been plagued a long time with this fearful 
visitation, the flying head came to the door of 
a lodge occupied by a single female and her dog. 
She was sitting composedly before the fire roast- 
ing acorns, which, as they became done, she delib- 
erately took from the fire and eat. Amazement 
seized the flying head, who put out two huge 
black paws from beneath his streaming beard. 
Supposing the woman to be eating live coals he 
withdrew, and from that time he came no more 
among them.* 

The withdrawal of the Konearaunehneh, was 
followed by the appearance of the great On-yur-he-f 
or lake serpent, which traversed the country, 
and by coiling himself in leading positions near 
the paths, interrupted the communication be- 
tween the towns. He created terror wherever 
he went, and diffused a poisonous breath. 

While this enemy yet remained in the land, 
and they were counselling about the best means 
of killing him, or driving him away, the coun- 
try was invaded by a still more fearful enemy, 
namely, the Ot-nc-ijar-hch, or Stonish Giants. 

* For a poetic use of this tradition of the Heads and Stonish 
Giants, see Hoffman's Wild Scenes, vol. 1, page 82. New 
York edition of 1843. 

t Mohawk. 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 267 

They were a powerful tribe from the wilder- 
ness, tall, fierce and hostile, and resistance to 
them was vain. The)^ defeated and overwhelm- 
ed an army which was sent out against them, 
and put the whole country in fear. These giants 
were not only of prodigious strength, but they 
were cannibals, devouring men, women and 
children in their inroads. 

It is said by the Shawnees, that they were de- 
scended from a certain family, which journeyed 
on the east side of the Mississippi, after the vine 
broke, and they went towards the northwest. 
Abandoned to wandering and the hardships of 
the forest, they forgot the rules of humanity, and 
began at first to eat raw flesh, and next men. 
They practised rolling themselves in the sand, 
and by this means their bodies were covered 
with hard skin, so that the arrows of the Iroquois 
only rattled against their rough bodies, and fell 
at their feet. And the consequence was, that 
they were obliged to hide in caves, and glens, 
and were brought into subjection by these fierce 
invaders for many winters, (or years.) At length 
the Holder of the Heavens visited his people, 
and finding that they were in great distress, he 
determined to grant them relief, and rid them 
entirely of these barbarous invaders. To accom- 
plish this, he changed himself into one of these 
giants, and brandishing his heavy club, led them 
on, under the pretence of finding the Akonoshi- 
oni. When they had got near to their strong 
hold at Onondaga, night coming on, he bid 



268 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

them lie down in a hollow, telling them that he 
would make the attack at the customary hour, 
at day break. But at daybreak, having ascend- 
ed a height, he overwhelmed them with a vast 
mass of rocks, where their forms may yet be 
seen. Only one escaped to carry the news of 
their dreadful fate, and he fled towards the north. 

They were thus relieved, and began to live in 
more security, but the great Onyarhe, was yet 
in the country. Alarmed by what Tarenya- 
wagon had done to relieve his people, and fear- 
ing for himself, he withdrew to the lakes, where 
he and his brood were destroyed with thunder 
bolts, or compelled to retire to deep water. 

The Five Families were so much molested 
with giants and monsters, that they were com- 
pelled to build forts to protect themselves. The 
manner of doing it was this; they built fires 
against trees, and then used their stone axes to 
pick off the charred part ; in this way, by renew- 
ing the fire, they soon felled them ; and the fallen 
trunks were burned oft' in suitable lengths, in 
the same way, and then set up according to the 
size and plan of the fort, a bank of earth being 
piled outside and inside. They left two gates, 
one to get water, and the other as a sally port. 

For some time after the great Onyarhe had 
left the country, they had peace ; but in after 
years a still more terrific enemy came. It had 
a man's head on the body of a great serpent. 
This terrific foe took his position on the path 
between the Onondagas and Cayugas, and thus 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 'J 6 9 

cut off all intercourse between their towns, for 
this was also the great thoroughfare of the Five 
Families, or nations. The bravest warriors were 
mustered to attack him with spears, darts and 
clubs. They approached him on all sides with 
yells. A terrible battle ensued; the monster 
raged furiously, but he was at last pierced in a 
vital place, and finally killed. This triumph was 
celebrated in songs and dances, and the people 
were consoled. They hunted again in peace, 
but after a time rumors began to be rife of the 
appearance of an extraordinary and ferocious 
animal in various places, under the name of the 
great 0-yal-kher, or mammoth bear. One morn- 
ing, while a party of hunters were in their camp, 
near the banks of a lake, in the Oneida country, 
they were alarmed by a great tumult breaking 
out from tlie lake. Going to see the cause of 
this extraordinary noise, they saw the monster 
on the bank rolling down stones and logs into 
the water, and exhibiting the utmost signs of 
rage. Another great animal of the cat kind, 
with great paws, came out of the water, and 
seized the bear. A dreadful fight ensued; in 
the end the bear was worsted and retired, horri- 
bly lamed. The next day the hunters ventured 
out to the spot, where they found one of the fore 
legs of the bear. It was so heavy that two men 
were required to lift it, but they found it was 
palatable food and made use of it, for their 
warriors believe that it inspires courage to eat 
of fierce and brave animals. 



270 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

After a while, a great pestiferous and annoy- 
ing creature of the insect tribe, appeared about 
the forts at Onondaga, in the guise of the Ge-ne- 
un-dnh-sais-ke, or huge musquito. It first ap- 
peared in the Onondaga country. It flew about 
the fort with vast wings, making a loud noise, 
with a long stinger, and on whomsoever it 
lighted, it sucked out his blood and killed him. 
Many warriors were killed in this way, and all 
attempts made to subdue it were abortive, till 
Tarenyawagon, or the Holder of the Heavens, 
was on a visit one day to the ruler of the Onon- 
dagas. The giant musquito happened to come 
flying about the fort, as usual, at this time. 
Tarenyawagon attacked it, but such was its ra- 
pidity of flight that he could scarcely keep in 
sisfhtofit. He chased it around the border of 
the great lakes, towards sun-setting, and round 
the great country at large, east and west. At 
last he overtook it and killed it near Gen-an- 
do-a, or the salt lake of Onondaga. From the 
blood flowing out on this occasion, the present 
species of small musquitoes originated. 

THE IROQUOIS QUETZALCOATL. 

A TKADITION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE LEAGUE OF THE FIVE NATIONS. 

It appears from the best authorities, that the 
first inhabitants of the ancient valle)^ of Ana- 
huac, or Mexico, came from the north. Accord- 
ing to the historian Sahagun, these early inhabit- 
ants were Toltecs. They lived first at Tullant- 
zinco, and thence migrated to Tulla. They had 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 271 

for their god Quetzalcoatl, whom they regarded 
as their teaclier in arts and learning. They 
traced to him their progress in power and civil- 
ization ; he rendered them superior to other men 
in war and cultivation, and as he was deemed 
both a god and a man, they appealed to him as a 
divine director, as well as their leader and 
founder. They also had in after times a king, or 
a ruling priest, of the same name. By the coun- 
sel of the former they left Tulla, and travelled 
eastward till they found a place called Tlapallan, 
or the city of the sun. This city they, in pro- 
cess of time, condemned and destroyed. Having 
done this, they went and founded the celebrated 
town of Cholula' — still known for the ruins of its 
magnificent terraced pyramid.^ Thus far Quet- 
zalcoatl, under whom they had risen to power, 
abode with them, and, having accomplished the 
object of his care, it was in this quarter that he 
left them, and disappeared. He was, however, 
expected to reappear, and this belief was pre- 
served up to the time of the conquest of the 
country by Cortez, whom the Aztecs, at first, mis- 
took for their benefactor, the lost Quetzalcoatl. 

It is remarkable that we find in the dim vista 
of Iroquois tradition, a counterpart of this story 
of Quetzalcoatl, dift'ering chiefly in the name of 
the individual and some of the incidents, to 
whom the bold northern clans ascribed their 
early power and supremacy, and in the extent to 

* This pyramid, which rises in three vast steps to the height 
of 177 feet, has a base of 1,423 feet. 



272 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

which he was supposed to have carried them, in 
arts, arms and exploits. 

Tarenya wagon, as the name is written by Cu- 
sick, united in one person tlie powers of a god 
and a man, and ■ while they gave him the ex- 
pressive name of the Holder of the Heavens, 
denoting the highest degree of sustaining power, 
he appeared only in the form of a man, and 
taught them hunting, gardening, the knowledge 
of medicine, and the art of war. He extricated 
them frofn the spot of their subterraneous con- 
finement, not far inland from the borders of one 
of the great lakes. He imparted to them, the 
knowledge of the laws and government of the 
Great Spirit, and gave them directions and en- 
couragement how to fulfil their duties and obli- 
gations. He gave them corn, and beans, and 
fruits of various kinds, with the knowledge of 
planting these fruits. He taught them how to 
kill, and roast game. He made the forests free 
to all the tribes to hunt, and removed obstruc- 
tions from the streams. He took his position, 
sometimes, on the top of high clifts, springing, 
if need were, over frightful chasms; and he 
flew, as it were, over the great lakes in a won- 
derful canoe of immaculate whiteness and ma- 
gic power. 

Having done this, he came down to closer 
terms of intimacy with the Onondagas, and re- 
solved to lay aside his divine character, and live 
among them, that he might exemplify the 
maximsVhich he had taught. For this purpose 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 273 

he selected a handsome spot of ground on the 
southern banks of a hike called Te-on-to — being 
the same sheet of water, which, in the present 
area of western New York, is called Cross lake. 
Here he built his cabin, and from the shores of 
this lake he went out into the forest like the 
rest of his red companions, in quest of game 
and fish. He took a wife of the Onondagas, 
by whom he had an only daughter, whom he 
tenderly loved, and most kindly and carefully 
treated and instructed — so that she was known 
far and wide, as his favorite child, and regarded 
almost as a goddess. The excellence of his cha- 
racter, and his great sagacity and good counsels, 
led the people to view him with veneration, and 
they gave him, in his sublunary character, the 
name of Hi-a-wat-ha, signifying a very wise man. 
People came to consult him from all quarters, and 
his abode was thronged by all ages and condi- 
tions, who came for advice. He became the first 
chief in all the land, and whoever he made his 
companions and friends, were likewise clothed 
with the authority of chiefs in the tribe. In this 
manner all power came naturally into his hands, 
and the tribe rejoiced that they had so wise and 
good a man to rule over them. For in those 
days, each tribe was independent of all others; 
they had not yet formed a league, but fought and 
warred with each other. 

Nothino; that belonged to Hiawatha in his 
character of Tarenyawagon, was more remark- 
able than his light and magic canoe, which 
36 



274 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

shone with a supernatural lustre, and in which 
he had performed so many of his extraordinary 
feats. This canoe was laid asicle when he 
came to fix his residence at Teonto, and never 
used but for great and extraordinary purposes. 
When great councils were called, and he as- 
sembled the wise men to deliberate together, 
the sacred canoe was carefully lifted from the 
grand lodge, which formed its resting place; 
and after these occasions were ended, it was as 
carefully returned to the same receptacle, on 
the shoulders of men, who felt honored in being 
the bearers of such a precious burthen. 

Thus passed away many years, and every 
year saw the people increasing in numbers, skill, 
arts and bravery. It was among the Onon- 
dagas that Tarenya wagon had located himself, 
and although he regarded the other tribes as 
friends and brothers, he had become identified 
as an adopted member of this particular tribe. 
Under his teaching and influence they became 
the first among all the original clans, and rose 
to the highest distinction in every art which was 
known to, or prized by the Akonoshioni. They 
were the wisest counsellors, the best orators, 
the most expert hunters, and the bravest war- 
riors. They also aflbrded the highest examples 
of obedience to the laws of the Great Spirit. If 
offences took place, Hiawatha redressed them, 
and his wisdom and moderation preserved the 
tribe from feuds. Hence the Onondagas were 
early noted among all the tribes for their pre- 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 275 

eminence. He appeared to devote his chief 
attention to them, that he might afterwards 
make them examples to the others, in arts and 
wisdom. They were foremost in the overthrow 
of the Stone Giants, and the kiUing of (he great 
serpent. To be an Onondaga was the highest 
honor. 

While Hiawatha was thus living in domestic 
quiet among the People of the Hills, and ad- 
ministering their simple government with wis- 
dom, they became alarmed by the sudden news 
of the approach of a furious and powerful enemy 
from the north of the great lakes. As this enemy 
advanced, they made an indiscriminate slaughter 
of men, women and children. The villages fled, 
in a short time, before them, and there was no 
heart in the people to make a stand against such 
powerful and ruthless invaders. In this emer- 
gency they fled to Hiawatha for his advice. He 
counselled them to call a general council of all the 
tribes from the east and the west. " For" said 
he, "our safety is not alone in the club and dart, 
but in wise counsels." He appointed a place on 
the banks of the Onondaga lake for the meeting. 
It was a clear eminence from which there was 
a wide prospect. Runners were despatched in 
every direction; and the chiefs, warriors, and 
head men forthwith assembled in great numbers, 
bringing with them, in the general alarm, their 
women and children. Fleets of canoes were 
seen on the bosom of the lake, and every inte- 
rior war path was kept open by the foot prints 



276 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of men, hurrying to obey the summons of Hia- 
watha. All, but the wise man himself, had been 
there for three days, anxiously awaiting the 
arrival of Hiawatha, when messengers were de- 
spatched after him. They found him gloomy 
and depressed. Some great burthen appeared 
to hang on his mind. He told them that evil 
lay in his path, and that he had a fearful fore- 
boding of ill fortune. He felt that he was called 
to make some great sacrifice, but he did not 
know what it was. Least of all, did he think it 
was to be his daughter. Ever careful of her, he 
bade her kindly to accompany him. Nothing 
happened to hinder, or at all interrupt their voy- 
age. The talismanic white canoe, which held 
them, glided silently down the deep waters of 
the Seneca. Not a paddle was necessary to give 
it impetus while it pursued the downward course 
of the stream till they reached Sohahee, or the 
point of the lake outlet. At this point Hiawatha 
took his paddle and gave it impetus against the 
current, until they entered on the bright and 
level surface of the Onondaga, cradled as this 
pure sheet of water is, among lofty and far 
sweeping hills. When the white canoe of the 
venerable chief appeared, a shout of welcome rang 
among these hills. The day was calm and serene. 
No wind rulfled the lake, and scarcely a cloud 
floated in the sky overhead. But while the wise 
man was measuring his steps towards the council 
ground, and up an ascent from the water's edge, 
a long and low sound was heard, as il' it were 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 277 

caused by the approach of a violent, rushing 
wind. Instantly all eyes were turned upAvards, 
where a small and compact mass of cloudy 
darkness appeared. It gathered size and velocity 
as it approached, and appeared to be directed 
inevitably to fall in the midst of the assembly. 
Every one fled in consternation but Hiawatha and 
his daughter. He stood erect, with ornaments 
waving in his frontlet, and besought his daughter 
calmly to await the issue. " For it is impossi- 
ble," said he, "to escape the power of the Great 
Spirit; if he has determined our destruction, we 
cannot, by running, fly from it." She modestly 
assented, and they stood together, while horror 
was depicted in every other face. But the force 
of the descending body, was like that of a sudden 
storm. They had hardly taken the resolution to 
halt, when an immense bird, with long distended 
wings, came down, with a swoop, and crushed 
the daughter to the earth. This gigantic agent 
of the skies came with such force, that the 
whole assembly felt the shock, and were blown 
back several rods. The girl, who was beautiful 
in her looks and form, was completely crushed, 
and the head, beak and neck of the bird were 
buried in the ground from the mere force of the 
fall. The very semblance of a human being 
could not be recognised among the shattered 
remains of the daughter. These were, however, 
collected and buried. 

But Hiawatha was inconsolable for his loss. 
He grieved sorely, day and night ; and wore a 



278 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

desponding and dejected countenance. But 
these were only faint indications of the feelings 
of his heart. He threw himself on tlie ground, 
and refused to be comforted. He seemed dumb 
with melancholy, and the people feared for his 
life. He spake nothing; he made no answers 
to questions put to him. He laid still, like one 
dead. After several days the council appointed 
Hosee Noke, a merry-hearted chief, to make a 
visit to him, and to whisper a speech of consola- 
tion in his ears, and to arouse him from his 
stupor. The result was successful; he ap- 
proached him with ceremonies, and induced 
him to arise, and name a time to meet the coun- 
cil. Yet haggard with grief, he called for re- 
freshments, and ate. He then adjusted his ward- 
robe and head dress, and went to the council. 
He drew his robe of wolf-skins gracefully round 
him, and walked to his seat at the head of the 
assembled chiefs, with a majestic step. Stillness, 
and the most fixed attention, reigned in the 
council, while the discussion was opened and 
proceeded. The subject of the invasion was 
handled by several of the ablest counsellors and 
boldest warriors. Various plans were proposed 
to foil the enemy. Hiawatha listened with si- 
lence till all had finished speaking. His opinion 
was then asked. After a brief allusion to the 
calamity which had befallen him, through the 
descent of the bird of the Great Spirit, he spoke 
to the following effect : 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 279 

" I have listened to the words of wise men, 
and hrave chiefs. But it is not fitting- that we 
should do a thing of so much importance in 
haste. It is a subject demanding calm reflec- 
tion and mature deliberation. Let us postpone 
the decision for one day. During this time, 
we will weigh well the words of the speakers, 
who have already spoken. If they are good, I 
will then approve them. If they are not, I will 
then open to you my plan. It is one which I 
have reflected on, and feel confident that it will 
ensure safety." 

When another day had expired, the council 
again met. Hiawatha entered the assembly 
with even more than the ordinary attention, and 
every eye was fixed upon him, when he began 
his address in the following words: 

"Friends and brothers: You are members 
of many tribes. You have come from a great 
distance. The voice of war has roused you up. 
You are afraid for your homes, your wives and 
your children. You tremble for your safety. 
Believe me, I am one with you. My heart beats 
with your hearts. We are one. We have one 
common object. We come to promote the 
common interest, and to determine how this 
can be best done. 

" To oppose these hordes of northern tribes, 
singly and alone, would prove certain destruction. 
We can make no progress in that way. We must 
unite ourselves into one common band of bro- 
thers. We must have but one voice. Many 



280 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

voices make confusion. We must have one fire, 
one pipe, and one war club. This will give us 
strength. If our warriors are united, they can 
defeat the enemy, and drive them from our land. 
If we do this, we are safe. 

Onondaga, you are the people sitting under the 
shadow of the Great Tree, whose roots sink deep 
in the earth, and whose branches spread wide 
around. You shall be the first nation, because 
you are warlike and mighty. 

Oneota, and you the people who recline your 
bodies against the Everlasting Stone, that cannot 
be moved, shall be the second nation, because 
you always give wise counsel. 

, and you the people who have your ha- 
bitations at the foot of the Great Mnintain, and 
are overshadowed by its crags, shall be the third 
nation, because you are all greatly gifted in 
speech. 

, and you the people whose dwelling is 

in the Dark Forest, and whose home is every 
where, shall be the fourth nation, because of 
your superior cunning in hunting. 

, and you the people who live in the Open 

Country, and possess much wisdom, shall be the 
fifth nation, because you understand better the 
art of raising corn and beans, and making cabins. 

You Five great and powerful nations, with 
your tribes, must unite and have one common 
interest, and no foes shall disturb or subdue you. 

, you the people who are as ^ the Feeble 

Bushes, and you, , who are a Fishing People, 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 281 

may place yourselves under our protection, and 
we will defend you. And you of the south, and 
you of the west, may do the same, and we will 
protect you. We earnestly desire the alliance 
and friendship of you all. 

Brothers: If we unite in this bond, the Great 
Spirit will smile upon us, and we shall le free, 
prosperous and happy; but if we remain as Ave 
are, we shall be subject to His frown. We shall 
be enslaved, ruined, perhaps annihilated forever. 
We may perish, and our names be lost forever. 

Brothers: These are the words of Hiawatha. 
Let them sink deep in your hearts. I have said 
it." 

A deep and impressive silence followed the 
delivery of this speech. On the following day 
the council assembled to act on it. Deliberation 
had recommended it, as founded in high wisdom. 
The union of the tribes into one confederacy 
was discussed and unanimously adopted. To 
denote the character and intimacy of the union, 
they employed the figure of a single council 
house, or lodge, whose boundaries were coex- 
tensive with their territories. Hence the name 
of Aquinushioni, who were called Iroquois by 
the French. 

The great bird which fell from heaven, brought 
a precious gift to the warriors, in the white 
plumes which covered it. Every warrior, as he 
approached the spot where it fell, plucked a 
feather of snowy whiteness to adorn his brows ; 
and the celestial visitant thus became the means 
37 



282 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of furnishing the aspirants of military fame with 
an emblem, which was held in the hiirhest esti- 
mation. Sncceedmg- generations imbibed the 
custom from this incident, to supply themselves 
with a plumage approaching it, as nearly as 
possible ; they selected the plumes of the white 
heron. 

Hiawatha, the guardian and founder of the 
league, having now accomplished the will of the 
Great Spirit, and the withdrawal of his daughter 
having been regarded by him as a sign that his 
mission was ended, he immediately prepared to 
make his final departure. Before the great 
council, which had adopted his advice, dispersed, 
he arose, with a dignified air, and addressed 
them in the following manner. 

" Friends and Brothers: I have now fulfilled 
my mission below. I have taught you arts, 
which you will find useful; I have furnished 
you seeds and grains for your gardens; I have 
removed obstructions from your waters, and 
made the forest habitable by teaching you to 
expel its monsters; I have given you fishing 
grounds and hunting grounds ; I have instructed 
in the making and use of warlike implements; 
I have taught how to cultivate corn. Many 
other arts and gifts I have been allowed by the 
Great Spirit to communicate to you. Lastly, I 
have aided you to form a league of friendship 
and union. If you preserve this, and admit no 
foreign element of power, by the admission of 
other nations, you will always be free, numerous 



ORAL TRADITIONS. 233 

and happy. If other tribes and nations are ad- 
mitted to your councils, they will sow the seeds 
of jealousy and discord; and you will become 
few, feeble and enslaved. 

"Friends and Brothers: Remember these 
words. They are the last you will hear from the 
lips of Hiawatha. The Great Master of breath 
calls me to go. I have patiently waited his 
summons. I am ready to go. Farewell." 

As the voice of the wise man ceased, sweet 
sounds, from the air, burst on the ears of the 
multitude. The whole sky appeared to be filled 
with melody. And while all eyes were directed. 
to catch glimpses of the sights, and enjoy strains 
of the celestial music that filled the sky, Hia- 
watha was seen, seated in his snow-white canoe, 
in the mid air, rising with every choral chant 
that burst out. As he rose, the sounds became 
more soft and faint, till he vanished in the sum- 
mer clouds, and the melody ceased. Thus ter- 
minated the labors and cares of Tarenyawagon, 
or the Iroquois Quetzalcoatl. 



CHAPTER X 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 



Who were the Eries ? — Building of the first Vessel on 
THE Upper Lakes — Who were the Alleghans ? — War 
with theKah-kwahs — Antique Inscribed Stone of Man- 
Lius — Original Discovery of the Onondaga Country 
BY the French — Burning of Schenectady — Antique 
Currency of the Manhattanese and their Neighbors — 
Cherokee Tradition of the Deluge — Asiatic Origin of 
THE Indian Race. 

Some interesting topics of inquiry, bearing on 
Iroquois history, cannot be well pursued at this 
time, without access to European libraries. The 
state of the book trade, and the importation of 
books into this country, but a few years ago, 
were such as to present still more scanty advan- 
tages to the pursuit of historical letters. There 
were but few libraries deserving of notice, and 
these were placed at remote points, spread over 
a very extensive geographical area, where access 
became often difficult or impossible. By far the 
largest number of American libraries were limit- 
ed to a few thousand volumes, often to a few 
hundreds only, and these were chiefly made up 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 285 

of common or elementary works on arts, sciences 
and general literatnre. Writers were compelled 
to consult works at second hand, and coold sel- 
dom get access to scarce and valuable originals ; 
and the difficulties of making original inquiries 
into archaeology, antiquities, philology, and other 
more abstruse, or less popular topics, increased 
at every step, and were in fact insurmountable 
to men of ordinary means. This state of things 
will sufficiently account for the low state of his- 
torical letters up to within a comparatively short 
period, without impugning the judgment or sa- 
gacity of early observers, on our local and dis- 
tinctive history; and the fact offers the best plea 
why the aboriginal branch of our antiquities, and 
the just expanding science of ethnology, have 
been left enshrouded in so much darkness and 
historical mystery. We have, in fact, not had 
the means of making such inquiries. The li- 
braries at Harvard, the public collection set on 
foot by Franklin at Philadelphia, the library of 
Congress, and that of the New York Historical 
society, and perhaps the growing library of the 
State Capitol at Albany, are some of the chief 
collections yet made in the Union ; and these 
might be conveniently stowed away, en masse, 
in one corner of the Bibliotheque Royal at Paris, 
without exciting notice. 

It is a subject of congratulation, that a class 
of booksellers is springing up in our cities, who 
are importers of antique works. The German 
and continental press, generally, is beginning to 



286 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

find access to our shores, and we may anticipate 
a period as not very remote, when original 
investigations into the most recondite topics 
may be made here, with every facility of this 
character. 



WHO WERE THE ERIES? 
Louis Hennepin, who was a Recollect, re- 
marks, in the original Amsterdam edition of his 
Travels, of 1698, that Canada was first disco- 
vered by the Spanish, alluding doubtless to 
the voyage of Cortereal, and that it received its 
first missionaries under the French, from the 
order of Recollects. These pioneers of the cross, 
according to tliis author, made themselves very 
acceptable to the Hurons, or Wyandots, who 
occupied the banks of the St. Lawrence, and 
Avho informed them that the Iroquois pushed 
their war parties beyond Virginia, and New 
Sweden,* and other parts remote from their 
cantons. They went, he says, in these wars, 
near to a lake, which they called Erige or Erie. 
Now, if they went "beyond Virginia and New 
Sweden," they were very remote from Lake 
Erie, and the assertion implies a contradiction 
or marked ignorance of the geography of the 
country. Erie, in the Huron language, he in- 
forms us, signifies the Cat, or Nation of the Cat ; 
a name, he says, which the lake derived from 

* The present area of the state of Delaware bore tliis de- 
fciiffiialion. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 287 

the fact that the Iroquois, in returning to their 
cantons, brought the Erige, or Erike, captives 
through it. The French softened this word to 
Erie. It would appear, then, that the Erics either 
did not occupy the immediate banks of tlie lake, 
or else they lived on the upper or more remote 
parts of it. To be brought captives through it, 
they must have been embarked at some distance 
from its lower extremity. This vague mode of 
expression leaves a doubt as to the actual place 
of residence of this conquered and, so called, 
extinct tribe. Whether extinct or not, is not 
certain, nor, indeed, probable. The name is only 
a Wyandot name. They had others. 

From inquiries made among theSenecas, some 
believe the Fries to be the same people whom 
this nation call Kah kwahs. But we do not 
advance much by changing one term for another. 
The inquiry returns, who were the Kah-kwahs ? 
Seneca tradition affirms that they lived on the 
hanks of Lake Erie, extending eastward towards 
the Genesee river, and westward indefinitely; 
and that they were finally conquered in a war, 
which was closed by a disastrous battle, the 
locality of which is not fixed ; after which they 
were chased west, and the remnant driven down 
the Alleghany river. (See a subsequent paper, 
" War with the Kah-kwahs.") 

Cusick, the Tuscarora archaeologist, who writes 
the word SquawJcihows, intimates that the Eries 
were an affiliated people, and that the remnant, 



288 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

after their defeat, were incorporated with the 
Senecas. 

Golden states that after the war with the Adi- 
rondacks broke out, say at the end of the six- 
teenth century, the Iroquois, to try their courage, 
went to war against a nation called Satanas,^ 
who lived on the banks of the lakes, whom they 
defeated and conquered, which raised their spirits 
so much, that they afterwards renewed the war 
against the Adirondacks and Huronsf on the St. 
Lawrence, and finally prevailed against them.t 

Satanas, it appears from the same author, is a 
name for the Shaouanons, Shawanoes, or Shaw- 
•nees, as the term is variously written ; a tribe, it 
may be further remarked, who are called C/idt 
by the modern Canadian French. Still, we 
must guard against mere etymologies. There 
is no reason to suppose the Satanas and Eries, 
by any means, the same people. 

A letter of the missionary Le Moyne, pub- 
lished in the Missionary Relacions, and hereto 
appended, proves that the war with the Eries, 
whatever may have been its origin or former state, 

* This word appears to be an English sobriquet, derived 
from the Dutch language, and is from Satan, a synonyme for 
Duivel. (See Jansen's new Pocket Dictionary, Dortracht, 
1831.) The plural inflection in a, if this derivation be correct, 
is duplicated in its meaning, by the corresponding English 
inflection in s, a practice quite conformable to English orthoepy, 
which puts its vernacular plural to foreign plurals, as Cheru- 
bims for Cherubim, &c. 

t Called Quatoghies by the Iroquois. 

\ Hist. Five Nations, p. 23, London ed. 1767. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 289 

had newly broken out in 1653, and there are 
references of a subsequent date to denote that 
by the year 1655, this war had terminated in 
the disastrous overthrow of this people. They 
appear to have been then located where the ex- 
isting traditions of Ihe Senecas place them, 
namely, west of Genesee river, reaching- to or 
near BufFalb. We may suppose that up to this 
period, the Senecas were limited to the eastern 
banks of the Genesee. And it was probably the 
results of this war that transferred their council 
fire from the present site of Geneva or Canan- 
daigua to the Genesee valley. 

When La Salle reached the Niagara river in 
1679, but twenty- four years after the close of 
this Erie war, he found the entire country on its 
eastern or Anaerican banks in the possession of 
the Senecas. The history and fate of the Eries 
was then a tradition. Let it be remembered, 
that the early French missionaries included the 
Eries in the Iroquois family. 

We may here drop the inquiry to be resumed 
at a future period. 

BUILDING OF THE FIRST VESSEL ON THE UPPER 
LAKES. 

The enterprise of La Salle, in constructing a 
vessel above the falls of Niagara, in 1679, to 
facilitate his voyage to the Illinois and the Mis- 
sissippi, is well known ; but while the fact of his 
having thus been the pioneer of naval archi- 
tecture on the upper lakes, is familiar to historical 
38 



290 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

readers, the particular place of its construction, 
has been matter of various opinions. Gen. Cass, 
in his historical discourse, places it at Erie; Mr. 
Bancroft in his history, designates the mouth of 
the Tonawanda. Mr. Sparks in the biography of 
Marquette, decides to place it on the Canadian 
side of the Niagara. These variances result in a 
measure from the vague and jarring accounts of 
the narrators, whose works had been consulted 
in some instances in abridged or mutilated trans- 
lations, and not from doubt or ambiguity in the 
missionary Letters. 

Literary associations in America, who aimed 
to increase the means of reference to standard 
works, began their labors in feebleness. The 
New York Historical Society, which dates its 
origin in 1804, and has vindicated its claims to 
be one of the earliest and most efficient aids to 
the study of historical letters in America, pub- 
lished Tonti's account of the Chevalier La Salle's 
enterprise, in one of the volumes of its first series. 
It is since known, however, that this account 
was a bookseller's compilation from, it is believed 
generally, correct sources, but it was disclaimed 
by Tonti. It is at least but an abbreviation, and 
cannot be regarded as an original work. 

In 1820, the American Antiquarian Society 
published in their first volume of collections, 
an account of Hennepin's discoveries, which is 
known to bibliographers to be also a translation of 
a mere abridgement of the original work, reduced 
to less than half its volume of matter. There 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 291 

was also an edition of this author, published in 
London in 1698; but still clipped of some of its 
matter, or otherwise defective ; the tastes and 
wants of an English public being constantly 
consulted in the admission of continental books 
of this cast. The original work of Hennepin 
was published in French, at Amsterdam, in 169S. 
Being of the order of Recollects, and not a Jesuit, 
there was much feeling and prejudice against 
him in France, of which Charlevoix, the accom- 
plished historian of New France, partook in no 
small degree. Yet whatever may have been the 
justice or injustice of these impeachments of the 
missionary's piety, there could be no motive for 
disagreement in a fact of this kind. As the ori- 
ginal work has never been published in this 
country, I annex a translation of such parts of 
the journal as bear on this topic. 

Hennepin Avas the camp missionary of the 
party on the way to Illinois, and the companion 
of La Salle on the occasion. By adverting to 
this narrative, the most satisfactory and circum- 
stantial details will be found. The vessel, ac- 
cording to him, was built " two leagues above 
the falls," on the south banks. From every ex- 
amination, there can be no doubt, that the spot 
selected was Cayuga creek, that is about three 
miles above the present site of Fort Schlosser. 

On the 14th day of January, 1679, we arrived 
at our cabin at Niagara, to refresh ourselves 
from the fatigues of our voyage. We had no- 



292 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

thing to eat but Indian corn. Fortunately, the 
whitefish, of which I have heretofore spoken, were 
just then in season. This delightful fish served 
to relish our corn. We used the water in 
which the fish were boiled in place of soup. 
When it grows cold in the pot, it congeals like 
veal soup. 

On the 20th, I heard from the banks where we 
were, the voice of the Sieur De La Salle, who 
had arrived from Fort Frontenac* in a large 
vessel. He brought provisions and rigging ne- 
cessary for the vessel we intended building above 
the great fall of Niagara, near the entrance into 
Lake Erie. But by a strange misfortune, that 
vessel was lost through fault of the two pilots, 
who disagreed as to the course. 

The vessel was wrecked on the southern shore 
of Lake Ontario, ten leagues from Niagara. The 
sailors have named the place La Cap Enrage, 
(Mad Cape.) The anchors and cables were 
saved, but the goods and bark canoes were lost. 
Such adversities would have caused the enter- 
prise to be abandoned by any but those who 
had formed the noble design of a new discovery. 

The Sieur De La Salle informed us that he had 
been among the Iroquois Senecas, before the loss 
of his vessel, that he had succeeded so well in 
conciliating them, that they mentioned with 
pleasure our embassy, which I shall describe in 
another place, and even consented to the prose- 
cution of our undertaking. This agreement was 

* Now Kingston. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 293 

of short duration, for certain persons opposed our 
designs, in every possible way, and instilled 
jealousies into the minds of the Iroquois. The 
fort, nevertheless, which we were building at 
Niagara, continued to advance. But finally, the 
secret influences against us were so great, that 
the fort became an object of suspicion to the 
savages, and we were compelled to abandon its 
construction for a time, and content ourselves 
with building a habitation surrounded with pal- 
isades. 

On the 22d we went two leagues above the great 
falls of Niagara, and built some stocks, on which 
to erect the vessel we needed for our voyage. 
We could not have built it in a more convenient 
place, being near a river which empties into the 
strait, which is between Lake Erie and the great 
falls. In all my travels back and forth, I always 
carried my portable chapel upon my shoulders. 

On the 26th, the keel of the vessel and other 
pieces being ready, the Sieur De La Salle sent 
the master carpenter named Moyse, to request 
me to drive the first bolt. But the modesty ap- 
propriate to my religious profession, induced me 
to decline the honor. He then promised ten 
louis d'or for that first bolt, to stimulate the 
master carpenter to advancfe the work. 

During the whole winter, which is not half as 
severe in this country as in Canada, we employed 
in building bark huts one of the two savages of 
the Wolf tribe, whom he had engaged for hunting 
deer. I had one hut especially designed ibr 



294 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

observing prayers on holidays and Sundays. 
Many of our people knew the Gregorian chant, 
and the rest had some parts of it by rote. 

The Sieur De La Salle left in command of our 
ship yard one Tonti, an Italian by birth, who had 
come to France after the revolution in Naples, 
in which his father was engaged. Pressing 
business compelled the former to return to Fort 
Frontenac, and I conducted him to the borders 
of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the river Nia- 
gara. While there he pretended to mark out a 
house for the blacksmith, which had been pro- 
mised for the convenience of the L'oquois. I can- 
not blame the Iroquois for not believing all that 
had been promised them at the embassy of the 
Sieur De La Motte. 

Finally the Sieur De La Salle undertook his 
expedition on foot over the snow, and thus ac- 
complished more than eighty leagues. He had 
no food, except a small bag of roasted corn, and 
even that had failed him two days' journey from 
the fort. Nevertheless he arrived safely with 
two men and a dog which drew his baggage on 
the ice. 

Returning to our ship yard, we learned that 
the most of the Iroquois had gone to war beyond 
Lake Erie, while our vessel was being built. 
Although those that remained were less violent, 
by reason of their diminished numbers, still 
they did not cease from coming often to our ship 
yard, and testifying their dissatisfaction at our 
doings. Some time after, one of them, pr«^t-'^d- 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 295 

ing to be drunk, attempted to kill onr blacksmith. 
But the resistance which he met with from the 
smith, who was named La Forge, and who 
wielded a red hot bar of iron, repulsed him, and 
together with a reprimand which I gave the 
villain, compelled him to desist. Some days 
after, a squaw advised us that the Senecas were 
about to set fire to our vessel on the stocks, and 
they would, without doubt, have effected their 
object, had not a very strict watch been kept. 

These frequent alarms, the fear of the failure 
of provisions, on account of the loss of the large 
vessel from Fort Frontenac, and the refusal of 
the Senecas to sell us Indian corn, discouraged 
our carpenters. They were moreover enticed 
by a worthless fellow, who often attempted to 
desert to New York, {Nouvelle Jorck,) a place 
which is inhabited by the Dutch, who have 
succeeded the Swedes. This dishonest fellow 
would undoubtedly have been successful with 
our workmen, had I not encouraged them by 
exhortations on holidays and Sundays after divine 
service. I told them that our enterprise had 
sole reference to the promotion of the glory of 
God, and the welfare of our Christian colonies. 
Thus I stimulated them to work more diligently 
in order to deliver us from all these apprehensions. 

In the meantime the two savages of the Wolf 
tribe, whom we had engaged in our service, fol- 
lowed the chase, and furnished us with roe-bucks, 
and other kinds of deer, for our subsistence. By 
reason of which our workmen took courage and 



296 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

applied themselves to their business with more 
assiduity. Our vessel was consequently soon in 
a condition to be launched, which was done, 
after having been blessed according to our church 
of Rome. We were in haste to get it afloat, 
although not finished, that we might guard it 
more securely from the threatened fire. 

This vessel was named The Griffin, {Le 
Griffon) in allusion to the arms of the Count de 
Frontenac, which have two Griffins for their 
supports. For the Sieur De La Salle had often 
said of this vessel, that he would make the 
Griffin fly above the crows. We fired three 
guns, then sung the Te Deum, which was fol- 
lowed by many cries of joy. 

The Iroquois who happened to be present, 
partook of our joy and witnessed our rejoicings. 
We gave them some brandy to drink, as well as 
to all our men, who slung their hammocks under 
the deck of the vessel, to sleep in greater security. 
We then left our bark huts, to lodge where we 
were protected from the insults of the savages. 

The Iroquois having returned from their beaver 
hunt, were extremely surprised to see our ship. 
They said we were the Oi-kon, which means in 
their language, penetrating minds. They could 
not understand how we had built so large a 
vessel in so short a time, although it was but 
sixty tons burthen. We might have called it a 
moving fort, for it caused all the savages to trem- 
ble, who lived within a space of more than five 
hundred leagues, along the rivers and great lakes. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 297 

I now went in a bark canoe, with one of our 
savage hunters, to the mouth of Lake Erie. I 
ascended the strong rapids twice with the assist- 
ance of a pole, and sounded the entrance of the 
lake. I did not find them insurmountable for 
sails, as had been falsely represented. I ascer- 
tained that our vessel, favored by a north or 
northeast Avind, reasonably strong, could enter 
the lake, and then sail throughout its whole 
extent with the a id of its sails alone ; and if they 
should happen to fail, some men could be put 
on shore and tow it up the stream. 

Before proceeding upon our voyage of disco- 
very, I was obliged to return to Fort Frontenac, 
for two of our company to aid me in my religious 
labors. I left our vessel riding at two anchors, 
about a league and a half from Lake Erie, in the 
strait which is between that lake and the great 
falls. I embarked in a canoe with the Sieur de 
Charon, and a savage ; we descended the strait 
towards the great falls, and made the portage 
with our canoe to the foot of the great rock of 
which we have spoken, where we reembarked 
and descended to Lake Ontario. We then found 
the barque which the Sieur de la Forest had 
brought us from Fort Frontenac. 

After a few days, which were employed by the 
Sieur de la Forest in treating with the savages, 
we embarked in the vessel, having with us 
fifteen or sixteen squaws, who embraced the 
opportunity, to avoid a land passage of forty 
leagues. As they were unaccustomed to travel 
39 



298 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

in this maimer, the motion of the vessel caused 
them great qualms at the stomach, and brought 
upon us a terrible stench in the vessel. We 
finally arrived at the river A-o-ou-e-gwa* where 
the Sieur de la Forest traded brandy for beaver 
skins. This traffic in strong drink was not 
agreeable to me, for if the savages drink ever so 
little, they are more to be dreaded than madmen. 
Our business being finished, we sailed from the 
southern to the northern shore of the lake, and 
favored by fair winds, soon passed the village 
which is on the other side of Keute and Gan- 
neousse. As we approached Fort Frontenac the 
wind failed us, and I was obliged to get into a 
canoe with two young savages, before I could 
come to land. 

^ ^t- -^ ^ i^ 

TV- "TV" •TV' -?V" TV 

A few days after, a favorable wind sprung up, 
and fathers Gabriel de la Bibourde, and Zenobe 
Mambre, and myself, embarked from Fort Fron- 
tenac in tlie brigantine. We arrived in a short 
time at the mouth of the river of the Senecas, 
(Oswego river), which empties into Lake Ontario. 
While our people went to trade with the sa- 
vages, we made a small bark cabin, half a league 
in the woods, where we might perform divine 
service more conveniently. In this way we 
avoided the instrusion of the savages, who came 
to see our brigantine, at which they greatly 
wondered, as well as to trade for powder, guns, 

* Probably ibe Genesee river. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 299 

knives, lead, but especially brandy, for which 
they are very greedy. This was the reason why 
we were unable to arrive at the river Niagara 
before the thirtieth day of July. 

On the 4th of August I went over land to the 
great falls of Niagara with the sergeant, named 
La Fleur, and from thence to our ship yard, 
Avhich was six leagues from Lake Ontario, but 
we did not tind there the vessel we had built. 
Two young savages slyly robbed us of the little 
biscuit which remained for our subsistence. We 
found a bark canoe, half rotten, and without 
paddles, which we fitted up as well as we could, 
and having made a temporary paddle, risked a 
passage in the frail boat, and finally arrived on 
board our vessel, which we found at anchor a 
league from the beautiful Lake Erie. Our arrival 
was welcomed with joy. We found the vessel 
perfectly equipped with sails, maets, and every 
thing necessary for navigation. We found on 
board five small cannon, two of which were 
brass, besides two or three arquebuses. A spread 
griffin adorned the prow, surmounted by an 
eagle. There were also all the ordinary orna- 
ments, and other fixtures, which usually adorn 
ships of war. 

The Iroquois, who returned from war with 
the prisoners taken from their enemies, were 
extremely surprised to see so large a vessel, like 
a floating castle, beyond their five cantons. 
They came on board, and were surprised beyond 
measure, to find we had been able to carry such 



300 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

large anchors through the rapids of the river St. 
Lawrence. This obliged them to make frequent 
use of the word gannoron, which in their lan- 
guage signifies, how wonderful. As there were 
no appearances of a vessel when they went to 
war, they were greatly astonished now to see 
one entirely furnished on their return, more than 
250 leagues from the habitations of Canada, in 
a place where one was never seen before. 

I directed the pilot not to attempt the ascent 
of the strong rapids at the mouth of Lake Erie 
until further orders. On the 16th and 17th, we 
returned to the banks of Lake Ontario, and as- 
cended with the barque we had brought from Fort 
Frontenac, as far as the great rock of the river 
Niagara. We there cast anchor at the foot of 
the three mountains, where we were obliged to 
make the portage caused by the great falls of 
Niagara, which interrupt the navigation. 

Father Gabriel, who was sixty-four years old, 
underwent all the fatigues of this voyage, and 
ascended and descended three times the three 
mountains, which are very high and steep at 
the place where the portage is made. Our peo- 
ple made many trips, to carry the provisions, 
munitions of war, and other necessaries, for the 
vessel. The voyage was painful in the extreme, 
because there were two long leagues of road 
each way. It took four men to carry our largest 
anchor, but brandy being given to cheer them, 
the work was soon accomplished, and we all 
returned together to the mouths of Lake Erie. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 301 

I have heretofore remarked that the Spaniards 
first discovered Canada, and the Recollects first 
went there with the French colonies. 

These good fathers were great friends of the 
Hurons, who told them that the Iroquois went 
to w^ar beyond A'^irginia, or New Sweden, near a 
lake, which they called Erige or Erie, which 
signifies the Cat, or nation of the Cat, and because 
these savages brought captives from the nation 
of the Cat, in returning to their cantons, along 
this lake, the Hurons named it, in their lan- 
guage, Erige or Erike, the Lake of the Cat, and 
which our Canadians, in softening the word, 
have called Lake Erie. 

We endeavored several times to ascend the 
current of the strait into Lake Erie, but the wind 
was not yet strong enough. We were therefore 
obliged to Avait until it should be more favorable. 

During this detention, the Sieur de La "Salle 
employed our men in preparing some ground on 
the western side of the strait of Niagara, where 
we planted some vegetables for the use of those 
who should come to live in this place, for the 
purpose of keeping up a communication between 
the vessels, and maintaining a correspondence 
from lake to lake. We found in this place some 
wild chervil, and garlic, which grow sponta- 
neously. 

We left father Melithon at the habitation we 
had made above the great falls of Niagara, with 
some overseers and workmen. Our men en- 
camped on the bank of the river, that the light- 



302 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ened vessel might more easily ascend into the 
lake. We celebrated divine service on board 
every day, and our people who remained on land 
could hear the sermon on holidays and Sundays. 

The wind becoming strong from the north- 
east, we embarked, to the number of thirty-two 
persons, with two of our order who had come to 
join us. The vessel was well found with arms, 
provisions and merchandise, and seven small 
cannon. 

The rapids at the entrance into the lake are 
very strong. Neither man, nor beast, nor ordi- 
nary bark can resist them. It is therefore almost 
impossible to stem the current. Nevertheless, 
we accomplished it, and surmounted those vio- 
lent rapids of the river Niagara by a kind of 
miracle, against the opinion of even our pilot 
himself. We spread all sail, when the wind 
was 'strong enough, and, in the most difficult 
places, our sailors threw out tow lines, which 
were drawn by ten or twelve men on shore. We 
thus passed safely into Lake Erie. 

We set sail on the 7th of August, 1079, stecr- 
ino- west south west. After having chanted the 
Te Deum, we fired all the cannon and arque- 
buses, in presence of many Iroquois warriors, 
who had brought captives from Tinionha, that is 
to say, from the people of the prairies, wlio live 
more than 400 leagues from their cantons. We 
heard these savages exclaim, gannoron, in testi- 
mony of their wonder. 

Some of those who saw us did not fail to re- 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 303 

port the size of our vessel to the Dutch at New 
York, {Nouvelle Jorck), with whom the Iroquois 
carry on a great traffic in skins and furs, which 
they exchange for fire arms, and blankets, to 
shelter them from the cold. 

The enemies of our great discovery, to defeat 
our enterprises, had reported that Lake Erie was 
full of shoals and banks of sand, which rendered 
navigation impossible. We therefore did not 
omit sounding, from time to time, for more than 
twenty leagues, during the darkness of the night. 

On the 8th, a favorable wind enabled us to 
make about forty-five leagues, and we saw almost 
all the way, the two distant shores, fifteen or 
sixteen leagues apart. The finest navigation in 
the world, is along the northern shores of this 
lake. There are three capes, or long points of 
land, which project into the lake. We doubled 
the first, which Ave called after St. Francis. 

On the 9th, we doubled the other two capes, 
or points of land, giving them a wide berth. 
We saw no islands or shoals on the north side 
of the lake, and one large island, towards the 
southwest, about seven or eight leagues from 
the northern shore, opposite the strait which 
comes from Lake Huron. 

On the 10th, early in the morning, we passed 
between the large island, which is toward the 
southwest, and seven or eight small islands, and 
an islet of sand, situated towards the west. We 
landed at the north of the strait, through which 
Lake Huron is discharged into Lake Erie. 



304 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Aug. 11. We sailed up the strait and passed 
between two small islands of a very charming 
appearance. This strait is more beautiful than 
that of Niagara. It is thirty leagues long, and 
is about a league broad, except about half way, 
where it is enlarged, forming a small lake which 
we called Sainte Claire, the navigation of which 
is safe along both shores, which are low and 
even. 

This strait is bordered by a fine country and 
fertile soil. Its course is southerly. On its banks 
are vast meadows, terminated by vines, fruit 
trees, groves and lofty forests, so arranged that 
we could scarcely believe but there were country 
seats scattered through their beautiful plains. 
There is an abundance of stags, deer, roe-bucks 
and bears, quite tame and good to eat, more 
delicious than the fresh pork of Europe. We 
also found wild turkeys and swans in abundance. 
The high beams of our vessel were garnished 
with multitudes of deer, which our people killed 
in the chase. 

Along the remainder of this strait, the forests 
are composed of walnut, chestnut, plum and pear 
trees. Wild grapes also abound, from which 
we made a little wine. There are all kinds of 
wood for building purposes. Those who will 
have the good fortune some day to possess the 
beautiful and fertile lands along this strait, will 
be under many obligations to us, who have 
cleared the way, and traversed Lake Erie for a 
hundred leagues of a navigation before unknown. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 305 

WHO WERE THE ALLEGHANS? 
This is an inquiry in our aboriginal archae- 
ology, which assumes a deeper interest, the more 
it is discussed. All the republic is concerned in 
the antiquarian knowledge and true etymology 
and history of an ancient race, to whom tradi- 
tion attaches valor and power, and who have 
consecrated their name in American geography 
upon the most important range of mountains 
between the valley of the Mississippi and the 
Atlantic. But the inquiry comes home to us 
with a local and redoubled interest, from the 
fact that they occupied a large portion of the 
western area of the state of jNew York, com- 
prising the valley of the Alleghany river to its 
utmost source, and extending eastwardly an 
undefined distance. Even so late as 1727, Col- 
den, in his History of the Five Nations, places 
them, under the name of AUeghe7is, on his map 
of this river. It is not certain that they did not 
anciently occupy the country as far east and 
south as the junction of Allen's creek with the 
Genesee. A series of old forts, anterior in age 
to the Iroquois power, extends along the shores 
of Lake Erie, up to the system of water commu- 
nication which has its outlet into the Alleghany 
through the Conewongo. There are some strik- 
ing points of identity between the character of 
these antique military works, and those of the 
Ohio valley; and this coincidence is still more 
complete in the remains of ancient art found in 
40 



o06 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the old Indian cemeteries, barrows, and small 
mounds of western New York, extending even 
as far east as the ancient Osco, now Auburn. 

The subject is one worthy of full examination. 
"Who this ancient race were, whence they came, 
and whither they went, are inquiries fraught 
with interest. We should not be led astray, or 
thrown off the track of investigation by the name. 
All the tribes, ancient and modern, have multi- 
form names. This one of the Alleghans, proba- 
bly fell upon the ears of the first settlers, but it 
is far from certain that it was their own term, 
while it is quite certain that it was not of the 
vocabulary of the bold northern race, the Iro- 
quois, who impinged upon them. It has the 
character of an Algonquin word. Their descend- 
ants, whoever their ancestors were, may yet 
exist, under their own proper name, in the far 
west, or their blood may mingle in Iroquois 
veins. The Iroquois, who pushed their con- 
quests down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers, did 
not found a claim to territory further south, on 
the Ohio river, than the mouth of the Kentucky. 
They pushed their war parties to the Cataba and 
Cherokee territories across the Alleghanies, and 
as fiir west as the Illinois. They swept over the 
whole region included between lakes Ontario, 
Erie and Huron, north. In the latter case we 
know it was a war against the tribes of the Al- 
gonquin stock, including one branch of another, 
and that their own generic stock, namely, the 
Quatoghies or llurons. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 307 

The following communication on this subject 
addressed, in the year 1845, to the secretary of 
the Maryland Historical Society, is added in this 
connection. Although written to vindicate a 
question of antiquarian research, in a sister so- 
ciety, and partaking perhaps a little of a polemic 
cast, the facts areof permanent interest, and are 
thrown together in a brief and concentrated form. 

Gentlemen: My attention has been called by 
a literary friend, to a notice of Mr. Brantz 
Mayer's report on the subject of a national name, 
or distinctive synonyme for our country. Mr. 
Mayer having chosen to reflect upon the anti- 
quarian value of the historical research involved 
in the inquiry, I feel called upon, as a member 
of the committee of the New York Historical 
Society, before whom this question was discussed, 
to say a few words in reply. 

The following quotation from my Glossary of 
Anglo-Indian Words, will best set forth my 
personal connection with the subject as a mena- 
ber of the society, and a humble laborer in the 
field of aboriginal antiquities, who is ready at 
all suitable times, to give authority for the use 
of whatever Indian terms he may employ. 

"Allegha7i, an obsolete aboriginal noun proper, 
applied adjectively both in French and English, 
to an ancient and long extinct people 'in North 
America, and likewise to the most prominent 
chain of mountains within the regions over 
which they are supposed to liave borne sway." 



308 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Our authorities respecting the ancient Alle- 
ghans, are not confined to the very late period, 
that is, 18 19,"* which is alone quoted, and exclu- 
sively relied on by the learned secretary of the 
Maryland Historical Society. Nor do they leave 
us in doubt, that this ancient people, who occupy 
the foreground of our remote aboriginal history, 
were a valiant, noble and populous race, who 
were advanced in arts and the policy of govern- 
ment, and raised fortifications for their defence.f 
While they held a high reputation as hunters, 
they cultivated maize extensively, which enable 
them to live in large towns ;:j; and erected those 
antique fortifications which are extended over 
the entire Mississippi valley, as high as latitude 
43°, and the lake country, reaching from Lake 
St. Clair§ to the south side of the Niagara ridge 
(the old shore of Lake Ontario), and the country 
of the Onondagas and Oneidas.|| Towards the 
south, they extended as far as the borders of the 
Cherokees and Muscogees.lT From the tradi- 
tions of Father Raymond, they were worshippers 
of the sun, had an order of priesthood, and ex- 
ercised a sovereignty over a very wide area of 
country .^'^ 

* Trans. Hist, and Lit. Com. Am. Phil. Soc, vol. 1, Phila- 
delphia, 1819. 

t N. Y. Hist. Col., vol. 2, p. 89, 91. 

X Daviea' Hist. Car. Islands. ^ Am. Phil. Trans. 

II Clinton's Discourse, N. Y. Hist. Soc, vol. 2. 

IF Seneca Tradition, N. Y. Hist. Col., vol. 2. 

** Hist. Carib. Island^ Paris, 1658. London ed. of 1666, 
p. 204, et. seq. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 309 

At what era the Alleghan confederacy, thus 
shadowed forth, existed and fell in North Ame- 
rica, we do not know. Our Indian nations have 
no certain chronolog^y, and we must establish 
data by contemporaneous tradition of the Mexi- 
can nations, or by internal antiquarian evidence. 

The old fort discovered by Dr. Locke in High- 
land county, Ohio, in 1838, denoted a period of 
600 years from its abandonment,* that is, 284 
years before Christopher Columbus first sailed 
boldly into the western ocean. The trees on 
Grave-creek mound denote the abandonment of 
the trenches and stone look-outs in that vicinity 
to have been in 1 338.f The ramparts at Marietta 
had a tree decayed in the heart, but the con- 
centric outer circles, which could be counted, 
were 463.t The live oaks on the low mounds 
of Florida, where one of the Algonquin tribes, 
namely, the Shawnees, aver that they once lived 
and had been preceded by a people more ad- 
vanced in arts, denote their abandonment about 
1145.§ But even these data do not, probably, 
reach back sufficiently far to denote the true 
period. 

If we fix upon the twelfth century as the era 
of the fall of the Alleghan race, we shall not 
probably over estimate the event. They had 
probably reached the Mississippi valley a century 

* Cincinnati Gazette. 

t Trans. Am. Ethnological Soc, vol. 1, N. Y., 1845. 

t Clinton's Discourse. 

§ Vide Arch. Am., vol. 1. 



310 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

or two before, having- felt, in their original posi- 
tion, west and south of that stream, the great 
revolutionary movements which preceded the 
overthrow of the Toltec and the establishment 
of the Aztec empire in Mexican America. 

There are but two words left in our geography, 
supposed to be of the ancient Alleghan language.^ 
These are Alleghany, and Yioghiogany, the latter 
being the name of a stream which falls into the 
Monongahela, on its right bank, about twenty 
miles above Pittsburgh. 

Tradition, not of the highest character, gives 
us the words Talligeu, or Talligwee, as the name 
of this ancient nation, although it is nearly iden- 
tical in sounds with the existing and true name 
of the Cherokees, which, according to the late 
Elias Boudinot (a Cherokee), is Tsallakee. Col. 
Gibson, a plain man, an Indian trader and no 
philologist, who furnished Mr. Jefterson with 
Indian vocabularies of the dialects of his day, to 
be used in answer to the inquiries of Catharine 
the Great,! expressed an opinion that this ancient 
people did not use a T before the epithet, but 
were called Allegewee. Tradition has, however, 
strictly speaking, preserved neither of these terms, 
although both appear to have strong affinities with 
them. The word Alleghany has come down to 
us, from the earliest times, as the name of the 

* Other names have been subsequently found, and may be 
hereafter brought forward, as vestiges of the Alleghan lan- 
guage. 

t Vide Trans. Royal Academy, Petersburgh. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 311 

great right-hand fork of the Ohio, and also asthe 
name, from the same remote period of antiquity, 
of the chain of mountains of which the stream 
itself may he said to he the most remote north- 
easterly tributary. In this form it is evidently 
a local term, applied geographically, according 
to the general principles of the Indian languages, 
like hanna in the Susquehanna, and hannock in the 
Eappahannock, which appear to denote, in each 
case, a river, or torrent of water. By removing 
this local inflection, we have Alleghan as the 
proper term for the people, and I have felf sus- 
tained by this inductive process, in regarding 
Alleghan as the original cognomen of the mound 
builders of North America. 

Having thus given my views with respect to 
the particular word which awakened this discus- 
sion, permit me now to turn to the other matters, 
so confidently brought forward by the secretary 
of the Maryland Hislorical Society. 

The Iroquois affirm that they formerly lived 
in the area of the Cherokee country.*' Captain 
Smith met a war party of this nation, in exploring 
one of the rivers of Virginia in 1608. So late as 
the era of the settlement of North Carolina, they 
brought off to the north the last of their cantons, 
in the tribe of the Tuscaroras. They sold the 
lands as far south as Kentucky river.f They 
quitclaimed the soil in northern Virginia and 
Maryland, and they quite forbid all sales of 

* Clinton's Discourse, N. Y. H. Soc. 
t Imlay's Hist. Kent. 



312 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

land by the Delawares. All authorities, indeed, 
concur in showing the track of their migration, 
prior to 1600, to have been from the south to 
the north and northeast. Affiliation of lan- 
guage is also thought to denote their origin in 
the south.* The Hurons, who are of the same 
stock, affirm that they were originally the first of 
all the nations, and call the Lenapees, who have 
assumed the same distinction, nephews, denoting 
inferiority in the chronological and ethnological 
chain. In this term of nephews, so applied to 
the Delawares, all the Iroquois tribes concur.f 
Algonquin tradition, recorded by Mr. Hecke- 
welder in the Am. Phil. Trans, in 1819, on the 
part of the Lenapees, denotes that a confedera- 
tion of these two stocks, namely, the political 
uncles and nephews, defeated the Alleghans, 
and drove them from the country. This tradi- 
tion is referred to a time when the Delawares or 
Lenapees, were shorn of all power and conse- 
quence, " having been degraded," according to 
their phrase, to assume the petticoat, and found 
a refuge in a new country, to them, on the Mus- 
kingum, where they were taken under the care, 
as they had previously been east of the moun- 
tains, of the Moravain brethren. In their remi- 
niscences they would consequently be prone to 
give prominence to such events as would reflect 
the most favorable lights on their history. They 
are speaking of events which, we see by the 

* Vide Gallatin, 2 vol. Arclia. Amcr.' 
f Vide Oneota. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 313 

preceding references, must have transpired 500 
or 600 years before, and in a very distant quarter 
of the Union. Yet they add some particulars 
which written history alone could preserve; and 
they ascribe to themselves such a degree of fore- 
sight, prudence, wisdom, valor and sense of 
Christian justice, as no Indian tribe in America 
ever evinced. These traditions are recorded by 
Mr. Heckewelder in a spirit of Christian kind- 
ness on his part, but he does not vouch for them ; 
they are to be judged, like other traditions, by 
their probabilities and their conformity to other 
and known traditions. It is on this account that 
I have adduced the preceding data. Every In- 
dian nation is prone to exalt itself, and if we 
would admit fully the claims of each, the rest 
would be sorry persons indeed. 

The first thing to be borne in mind is, that the 
tradition is a very ancient one, and must have 
come down shorn of many particulars, which 
there appears to have been great carefulness to 
restate. The scene also is remote from the 
place of narration. No such fact as the princi- 
pal one of the crossing, on which great stress is 
laid by Mr. Mayer, on the part of the Maryland 
Historical Society, could have taken place in the 
Ohio valley, or within one thousand miles of 
Pittsburgh, where alone, it must be remembered, 
we have any evidence, in the existing names of 
the country, of the residence of the Alleghans. 

The Algonquins (we include the Lenapees in 
their proper groupe), attempting to cross the 
41 



314 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Mississippi, into the territories of a foreign na- 
tion, with a large body of men, are defeated 
and driven back. They show themselves pa- 
cifically, in a moderate number, and the foreign- 
ers say, come ! but turning out a multitude, are 
assailed. Whether this was an original strata- 
gem, or an after thought, we are left to infer; 
but in either case, it would be quite conformable 
to Indian policy. For the sake of clearness, we 
will locate this event in the section of this great 
river between the Chickasaw blufts and Natchez, 
its probable site. On this defeat they form an 
alliance with their uncles, the Iroquois, who 
were already east of the Mississippi, and were 
located north of the AUeghans. A long war 
begins, in the course of which the latter erect 
the fortifications which have excited so much 
curiosity in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, 
and after proving themselves valiant men, are 
finally overpowered and driven off'. The Lena- 
pees are in 1819 the historians of their enemies, 
and berate them as faithless. The Maryland 
Historical Society, twenty-six years later, en- 
dorse the whole story, and pronounce the AUe- 
ghans pusillanimous, not so much it would seem 
for their heroic struggle and defence, as for the 
cause of it, namely, not letting the Algonquin 
hordes march into or through their country, as 
the superior forecast and judgment of the latter 
might, on further progress, dictate. 

Does any sound historian, does any one ac- 
quainted with Indian life, character, or history, 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 315 

as it exists, and has always existed in North 
America, believe that the pacific and Christian 
request, put forth 'by Mr. Heckewelder, as the 
chronicler of his Delaware converts at Gnaden- 
hutten, namely, that they might be allowed to 
explore a country east of them, to select it out 
and dwell therein, or that they had previously 
had the prudence, energy and forecast to send 
spies, like Moses, to spy it out — as if they were 
seeking a country for an agricultural settlement, 
with flocks and implements of husbandry — I 
repeat it, does any one, who reads this detailed 
part of the tradition, as told to and believed by 
the good old missionary, credit a syllable of it ? 
If he does, his good-natured credulity must be 
greater than that of the committee of the New 
York Historical Society, whose suggestive report 
on the discussion of a distinctive national name 
has been the theme of so much misconception — 
may I not add, of so truly Pickwickian a degree 
of patriotism. 

The truth is, this suggestion of a peaceful 
passage for the great Algonquin army, is to be 
found originally in the 20th chapter of Numbers, 
in the demand made by divine direction, by the 
Jewish leader, for a safe passport through the 
land of Edom, for the faithful performance of 
which there was a divine guaranty. And when 
the kind father had taught this historical lesson 
to his peaceful disciples on the banks of the 
Muskingum, he did not perceive, in afterwards 
putting down the traditions of his favorite Dela- 



316 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

wares, how completely they had adapted a sacred 
event to the exigencies of savage life, in a host 
of lawless invaders in tlie American wilderness, 
m the 12th century. 

But we are not only to take this entire tradi- 
tion of 1819, of an event happening 600 years 
before, in extenso, with all its moral exactness 
of motive, in the original actors, without any 
abatements or corrections required by other tra- 
ditions or history, but the good father, whose 
moral excellence is pure and unimpeachable, 
but who was no philologist, aims to make the 
existing lexicography of the Delaware prove the 
tradition ; and we have, in a foot note, a forced 
etymology of the name of the river Mississippi, to 
demonstrate that this is a Delaware name. Now, 
the name of this river is not Namcssa sepu, that 
is, Sturgeon, Trout, or as he gives it. Fish river, 
but Missi-sippi — a derivative from the adjective 
great, in an aboriginal sense, and sippi, a river. 
Mr. Gallatin* is inclined to believe that it should 
be translated the whole river, or a unity of waters ; 
but neither he nor any other commentator, has 
been able to make/^A out ofmissi. The merest 
tyro in the Indian languages, must perceive that 
the etymology does not bear the meaning of 
Fish river; and if it did, it would prove, contrary 
to their reputation, that the Indians give the 
most inappropriate geographical names, of all 
men in existence. Fish river would be the most 
mal-appropriate name for the Mississippi. Its 

*Archa. Am., vol. 2. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 317 

turbid waters and rushing channel, surcharged 
with floating trees, and subject to a thousand 
physical mutations every season, is absolutely 
forbidding to the larger number of species, and 
favorable only to the coarser kinds, which are 
rejected from the table of the epicure. 

A single remark more. The Delawares have 
never lived, or, if we examine Indian treaties, 
held an acre of land on the Mississippi, in its 
whole course between Itasca lake and the Ba- 
lize. When Penn came to America, they lived 
on the Delaware river, in central Pennsylvania. 
They were ordered to quit the sources of the 
Delaware river by the Iroquois in 1742, and go 
to Wyoming or Shamoken.* They found their 
way across the Alleghanies in time to burn Col. 
Crawford at the stake,f and oppose the settle- 
ment of the Ohio valley, prior to the revolution ; 
they settled on the Muskingum, and after some 
afflictions and mutations, chiefly brought upon 
themselves, they accepted lands, and first began 
to recross the Mississippi in 1818.:j: They are 
now located on the west banks of the Missouri, 
on the Konsas. Yet the etymology adverted to 
attributes to this tribe not only the naming of 
the river upon which they never lived, and 
%iever held any lands, but presupposes that the 

* Colden's Hist. Five Nations, vol. 1, p. 31. 

t Metcalf 's Indian Wars in the West. 

1: This is the first time that this tribe ever, by history or 
tradition, other than their own, saw this river. 



318 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Illinois and other Algonquin nations living on 
its banks, above the influx of the Ohio and the 
Missouri, to whom, with the influence of the 
French, the actual name is due, preserved the 
Delaware term, Namcssa sepu, although it is 
neither used by their descendants, nor by Euro- 
peans. 



WAR WITH THE KAH-KWAHS. 
Some inquiries have been made, in a prior 
paper, on the strong probabilities of this people 
being identical with the Ererions or Eries. 
W^hile this question is one that appears to be 
within the grasp of modern inquiry, and may 
be resumed at leisure, the war itself, with the 
people whom they call Kah-kwahs, and we Eries, 
is a matter of popular tradition, and is alluded 
to with so many details, that its termination 
may be supposed to have been an event of not 
the most ancient date. Some of these remin- 
iscences having found their way into the news- 
papers* in a shape and literary garniture which 
was suited rather to take them from the custody 
of sober tradition, and transfer them to that of 
romance, there was the more interest attached 
to the subject, which led me to take some pains 
to ascertain how general or fresh their recollec- 
tions of this war might be. 

* See Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, July 12, 1845, article 
Indian Traditions. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 319 

My inquiries were answered one evening at 
the mission house at Buffalo, by the Alleghany 
chief, Ha-yek-dijoh-kunh, or the Wood-cutter, 
better known by his English name of Jacob 
Blacksnake. He stated that the Kah-kwahs had 
their chief residence at the time of their final 
defeat, on the Eighteen-mile creek. The name 
by which he referred to them, in this last place 
of their residence, might be written perhaps 
with more exactitude to the native tongue, Gah 
Gwah-ge-o-nuh — but as this compound word 
embraces the ideas of locality and existence 
along with their peculiar name, there is a species 
of tautology in retaining the two inflections. 
They are not necessary in the English, and be- 
sides in common use, I found them to be gene- 
rally dropt, while the sound of g naturally 
changed in common pronunciation into that of A:. 

Blacksnake commenced by saying, that while 
the Senecas lived east of the Genesee, they re- 
ceived a challenge from the Kah-kwahs, to try 
their skill in ball-playing and athletic sports. It 
was accepted, and after due preliminaries, the 
challengers came, accompanied by their prime 
young men, who were held in great repute as 
wrestlers and ball-players. The old men merely 
came as witnesses, while this trial was made. 

The first trial consisted of ball-playing, in 
which, after a sharp contest, the young Senecas 
came oft^ victorious. The next trial consisted of 
a foot race between two, which terminated also 
in favor of the Senecas. The spirit of the Kah- 



320 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

kwahs was galled by these defeats. They im- 
mediately got up another race on the instant, 
which was hotly contested by new runners, but 
it ended in their losing the race. Fired by these 
defeats, and still confident of their superior 
strength, they proposed wrestling, with the san- 
guinary condition, that each of the seconds 
should hold a drawn knife, and if his principal 
was thrown, he should instantly plunge it into 
his throat, and cut off his head. Under this ter- 
rible penalty, the struggle commenced. The 
wrestlers were to catch their hold as best they 
could, but to observe fair principles of wrestling. 
At length the Kah-kwah was thrown, and his 
head immediately severed and tossed into the 
air. It fell with a rebound, and loud shouts pro- 
claimed the Senecas victorious in four trials. 
This terminated the sports, and the tribes re- 
turned to their respective villages. 

Some time after this event, two Seneca hunt- 
ers went out to hunt west of the Genesee river, 
and as the custom is, built a hunting lodg^ of 
boughs, where they rested at night. One day, 
one of them went out alone, and having walked 
a long distance, was belated on his return. He 
saw, as he cast his eye to a distant ridge, a large 
body of the Kah-kwahs marching in the direction 
of the Seneca towns. He ran to his companion, 
and they instantly fled and alarmed the Senecas. 
They sent off a messenger post haste to inform 
their confederates towards the east, who imme- 
diately prepared to meet their enemies. After 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES 321 

about a day's march they met them. It was 
near sunset when they descried theh camp, and 
they went and encamped in the vicinity. A con- 
ference ensued, in which they settled the terms 
of the battle. 

The next morning the Senecas advanced. 
Their order of battle was this. They concealed 
their young men, who were called by the nar- 
rator burnt-knives,* telling them to lie flat, and 
not rise and join the battle until they received 
the war cry, and were ordered forward. With 
these were left rolls of peeled bark to tie their 
prisoners. Having made this arrangement, the 
old warriors advanced, and began the battle. 
The contest was fierce and long, and it varied 
much. Sometimes they were driven back, or 
faltered in their line — again they advanced, and 
again faltered. This waving of the lines to and 
fro, formed a most striking feature in the battle 
for a long time. At length the Senecas were 
driven back near to the point where the young 
men were concealed. The latter were alarmed, 
and cried out, " Now we are killed !" At this 
moment, the Seneca leader gave the concerted 
war-whoop, and they arose and joined in battle. 
The effects of this reinforcement, at the time 
that the enemy were fatigued with the day's 
fight, were instantaneously felt. The young 
Senecas pressed on their enemies with resistless 
energy, and after receiving a shower of arrows, 

*A term to denote their beiug quite young, and used here 
as a cant phrase for prime young warriors. 
42 



322 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

beat down their opponents with their war-clubs, 
and took a great many prisoners. The prisoners 
were immediately bound with their arms behind, 
and tied to trees. Nothing could resist their 
impetuosity. The Kah-kwah chiefs determined 
to fly, and leave the Senecas masters of the field. 

In this hard and disastrous battle, which was 
fought by the Senecas alone, and without aid 
from their confederates, the Kah-kwahs lost a 
very great number of their men, in slain and 
prisoners. But those who fled were not per- 
mitted to escape unpursued, and having been 
reinforced from the east, they followed them 
and attacked them in their residence on the 
Deoseowa (Buffalo creek), and Eighteen-mile 
creek, which they were obliged to abandon, and 
fly to the Oheeo, the Seneca name for the Alle- 
ghany. The Senecas pursued them in their ca- 
noes, in the descent of this stream. They disco- 
vered their encampment on an island, in num- 
bers superior to their own. To deceive them, 
the Senecas, on putting ashore, carried their ca- 
noes across a narrow peninsula, by means of 
which they again entered the river above. New 
parties appeared, to the enemy, to be thus con- 
tinually arriving, and led them greatly to over- 
estimate their numbers. This was at the close 
of day. In the morning not an enemy was to 
be seen. The Eries had fled down the river, and 
have never since appeared. It is supposed they 
yet exist west of the Mississippi. 

Two characteristic traits of boasting happened 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 323 

in the first great battle above described. The 
Kah-kwah women carried along, in the rear of 
the warriors, packs of moccasins, for the women 
and children whom they expected to be made 
captives, in the Seneca villages. The Senecas, 
on the other hand, said as they went out to bat- 
tle, " Let us not fight them too near for fear of 
the stench," alluding to the anticipated heaps 
of slain. 

It may here be inquired, perhaps, whether 
the Kah-kwahs were not a remnant, or at least 
allies of the ancient AUeghans, who gave name 
to the river, and thus to the mountains. The 
French idea, that the Eries were exterminated, 
is exploded by this tradition of Blacksnake, at 
least if we concede that Erie and Kah-kwah, 
were synonyms. • A people who were called 
Ererions by the Wyandots, and Kah-kwahs by 
the Iroquois, may have had many other names, 
from other tribes. It would contradict all In- 
dian history, if they had not as many names as 
there were diverse nations to whom they were 
known. 

ANTIQUE INSCRIBED STONE OF MANLIUS. 
It is some six and twenty years since a farmer 
in the town of Manlius, in Onondaga county, in 
gathering stones out of his field, turned up one, 
which had an inscription of a rude character, on 
its under side, with a date. It appeared to be a 
boulder, which had been appropriated to the 
purpose of a grave stone, by some European 



324 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



person or party of the adventurous era of wild 
discovery and gold hunting-, which began with 
1492. Several notices of this relic have ap- 
peared, differing, however, in their accounts of 
parts of the inscription. The stone itself has 
been, some years, deposited in the museum of 
the Albany Institute, where it is open to in- 
spection. The following is a fac simile of it. 




The disposition to exalt every antiquarian dis- 
covery of the country into a wonder, is one of 
the characteristics of the era. As the authen- 
ticity of this monument has not been questioned, 
and the fact it discloses does not put reason and 
probability to the stretch, there would not appear 
to have been a necessity for the multiplicity of 
speculations, which it has given rise to. But as 
such speculations have been made, it is proper 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 825 

to allude to them, in order truly to understand 
the question. 

The discovery itself had all the simplicity 
which generally marks the narration of acci- 
dental incidents of the kind, by plain persons, 
who are intent on their own practical affairs, 
and are not set on theories, or discoveries of any 
sort. In the year 1820 or 1821, a farmer of 
Manlius, a Mr. Philo Cleaveland, determined to 
extend his meadow lands over a previously un- 
cultivated part of his farm, and, after felling and 
removing the trees, began to prepare it, by pick- 
ing up the larger stones. This inscription stone 
was found among them. It rested on, and was 
partly imbedded in, a moist piece of ground. It 
was toward evening, at the closing of his day's 
labors, when he raised the stone with his iron 
bar and turned it on its edge. Mr. C. being 
weary, leaned against a stump near by, with his 
hands resting on • the top of the bar. While 
musing in that position, with his eyes fixed upon 
the stone, he observed something remarkable 
about it ; and upon taking a nearer view, dis- 
covered some of the characters and letters above 
described. He removed it to a pile of stones 
not far distant, and at the time thought but 
little of it. Several days afterward he made 
another visit to the stone, when he found that 
the rain had washed the dirt clean from it, and 
the rude engraving was much more distinctly to 
be seen. This induced him to invite some of 
his neighbors to examine it, whereupon it was 



326 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

decided to remove it to a blacksmith's shop at 
Watervale, a small settlement near by. It re- 
mained there six months or more, and became 
the subject of much talk and speculation at the 
time. 

Every person who came to the shop would of 
course examine the stone. It was not uncom- 
mon for some of them to take a horse nail, or 
old file, and scrape the cracks, seams and carv- 
ings, till all the parts of the inscription were freed 
from dirt. The stone was found with the in- 
scription downward, about one-third buried. It 
was subsequently removed to Manlius village, 
and was visited by several gentlemen of science, 
most of whom were disposed to admit that it 
was genuine. It remained in this village nearly 
a year, and was finally deposited in the museum 
of the Albany Institute, now under the care of 
Dr. T. Romeyn Beck. The nature and objects 
of the inscription will best appear by a minute 
examination of the engraving. The stone is 
about fourteen inches, by twelve, and eight 
inches in thickness. It is a hard, oval shaped 
boulder, of a gneisoid character, and bears the 
evidence of attrition common to all the "erratic 
block groupe." By the figure of a serpent climb- 
ing a tree, a well known passage in the Penta- 
teuch is clearly referred to. By the date, the 
sixth year of the reign of the Roman pontiff, 
Leo X, has been thought to be denoted. This 
appears to be probable, less clearly from the in- 
scriptive phrase, Leo de Lon VI, than from 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 327 

the plain date, 1520, being six years after this 
pontifi' took the papal chair. 

It has been stated in newspaper notices, that 
Mexico had been fully explored and settled pre- 
vious to 1521. In the appendix to Stone's Brant, 
this is narrowed down to the declaration that 
Mexico was "settled" at that date. Neither is 
strictly true. Cortez first attacked the city in 
1519, whence he was expelled under the short 
but energetic reign of Guatamozin, but he finally 
prevailed, after taking the troops of Narvaez, and 
carried the city and razed it to the ground, as he 
entered it, in 1521. His army entered it finally 
on the 13th August. No exploration of the ter- 
ritory, far less "settlement," was made, or at- 
tempted, until after this date. We cannot look, 
indeed, to Mexico, as having originated any 
measure which led to a visit, however isolated, 
of the Iroquois country, a region possessed then, 
as afterwards, by brave muscular warriors, very 
different, in these respects, from the mild and 
luxurious Aztecs. 

Gaspar Cotereal, a Portuguese, had explored 
nearly the whole coast of North America in 150 1. 
The fishing grounds of Newfoundland were well 
known, and were occupied by the French as 
early as 1505. The Italian navigator Verrizani, 
examined the shores of the United States in 
1525. Jacques Cartier reached Hochelaga, the 
present site of Montreal, in 1535. 

It has been said that the inscription is due to 
persons connected with the celebrated expedition 



328 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of De Soto. This explorer, who set out with the 
spirit of a Cortez, and who had the brilliant suc- 
cess of the latter to stimulate him to deeds of 
heroism, examined both banks of the Mississippi, 
for some leagues, and penetrated as far north as 
latitude 36°. It has been related by some that 
he with his party rambled over a considerable 
part of Florida, which then embraced nearly all 
the country now known as the southern states. 
During their travels, it is said, they fell in with a 
party of northern Indians, having with them a 
Spaniard taken from the party of Narvaez, who 
had proceeded over much of Florida ten years 
before ; and that by their guidance, the captive 
Spaniard was led to this spot. It is further sug- 
gested by Sandford, in his Aborigines, in which 
he is followed by Stone, in his Life of Brant, that 
De Soto had probably gone as far north as the 
Susquehanna, from the analogies to this name 
found in the word " Saquechama," which is 
employed by the historian of the expedition. 
But it is quite overlooked, that De Soto did not 
set out on his expedition till 1538, eighteen years 
after the date of the Onondaga inscription. Flo- 
rida had, however, then been known to the 
Spaniards for many years, having been disco- 
vered by De Leon in 1512, the very year that Leo 
X. assumed the papal chair. Its coasts and bays 
were known, as far west, at least, as the mouth 
of the Mississippi, which was evidently disco- 
vered by the Spaniards ti*om Cuba in 1527. It 
was De Leon, however, who first visited the 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 829 

interior, and his visionarj'- search for the spring 
endowed with the property of restoring perpetual 
youth, would hardly be credited, did it not rest 
on the best historical testimony. It is far more 
likely that some straggling party had reached 
the Iroquois country, from this Quixotic era of 
exploration, than from the mouth of the 8t. 
Lawrence, where the Cotereals were in 1501. 
And with this idea in view, it may be thought 
that the name De Leon is intended, by the words 
De Lon. The date, VI, would tally exactly 
with the sixth year after his landing in, and 
discovery of Florida, in 1512; the Onondaga 
country being then, as much a part of Florida as 
any other part of the Atlantic and interior coasts. If 
by the prefix of Leo, or Lion, a compliment to a 
brave and hardy explorer was designed to have 
been expressed, it would have well corresponded 
with the chivalric character of that age. As a 
mere historical question, a claim to the discovery 
of the interior of New York, by the Spanish 
crown, might, in this view, find something to base 
itself on. 

ORIGINAL DISCOVERY OF THE ONONDAGA COUN- 
TRY BY THE FRENCH. 

If it is some abatement to the high conceptions 
which have been formed of a certain prominent 
class of antiquarian remains, existing in the ge- 
neral area of the Onondaga country, to find that 
they correspond with the Trans- Alleghany epoch 
of early occupancy, it is at the same time satis- 
43 



330 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

factory to know, from authentic sources, that 
the vestiges of European art, scattered so widely 
through that quarter of the country, are due, 
almost exclusively, to the missionaries, fur tra- 
ders, and early military commanders of France 
and Holland, and do not reach back beyond the 
opening of the sixteenth century. These powers 
first set foot in North America within about a year 
of the same time, Champlain having preceded 
Hudson perhaps a little ; but the year 1609, is as 
early as either of them, actually, penetrated into 
the interior, or outskirts of the present area of 
western New York. It was western New York 
which was generally comprehended, at the seve- 
ral early eras, by the terms Oneida Castle, Onon- 
daga Country, that excited their early rivalry. 
Both powers regarded it, as the store house of 
the wealth of the fur trade, and the prop of their 
political power. And they manouvred and 
fought for it, in a long series of years, and 
subtile negotiations, like a strong and wise man, 
who has much at stake. The conversion and 
civilization of the Indian tribes was put forth as 
a prominent object, and was not disregarded, by 
either power; but it is pretty evident, in scanning 
the history of the times, that, whatever other 
good the plan effected, it became the prominent 
means of carrying on a peculiar branch of inland 
diplomacy, and furnished the apology, at first, to 
theFrench, for entering into new territories, and 
afterwards, for remaining in them. 

It is remarkable, however, when we examine 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 331 

the ancient records, to find, that the Dutch pos- 
sessed the entire and sole trade and control of 
the Iroquois cantons, during the whole period of 
the supremacy of the States General, in New 
York. This enterprising people, had gathered 
wisdom in the extension of their commerce in 
the East Indies, China and Japan. They went 
to that part of the world to extend their com- 
merce. It was a business left exclusively in the 
hands of the merchants, who had chartered 
privileges; and the functionaries of the stadt- 
holder submitted, as being a mere question of 
etiquette, to all the ceremonies and prostrations 
imposed by those pompous and semi-barbarous 
oriental courts. They applied the same policy 
here, and pleased the Iroquois so well, and ad- 
hered so faithfully to their compacts with them, 
that the French missionaries and emissaries, 
although they were active, made but little im- 
pression upon the Iroquois cantons, and did not 
draw them into a public alliance until 1667, 
being three years after the first surrender of New 
Amsterdam to the Duke of York. 

It is interesting to trace the early movements 
of the French to gain an entrance into the Iro- 
quois cantons, and serves to show the strength 
of the grasp, which the early colonists had on 
them, when it is perceived, that it was not till 
after the middle of the seventeenth century, that 
the Onondaga country was first successfully 
explored from the direction of Canada, or New 
France, as it was then denoted. Time has 



332 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

given an interest to the early details, on this 
head, which invests mere private, or at least, 
missionary adventure, with the importance of 
history. And it is from this consideration that 
I have inserted, in a translation, the journal of 
Father Le Moine, a Jesuit, who apjDcars to have 
been one of the earliest, if not the first ecclesi- 
astic of his order, who entered the country. This 
exploratory journey was commenced at Mont- 
real, in July 1653, and completed in that month, 
and August and September following. The Iro- 
quois gave their new visitor the name of Ondes- 
sonk. He was very respectful of their customs in 
conducting public councils; a good observer of 
character and motives, as well as of the natural 
features of the country; and his visit appears to 
have been well taken. The notice he gives of 
the salt springs at Onondaga lake, is probably the 
earliest for which we are to look to French au- 
thors. His allusion to the war with the Eries, 
an obscure subject, in some respects, is important 
in adjusting the chronology of their final defeat 
and expulsion ; and the notices which appear, 
incidentally, of the quadrupeds, and the crops 
of zea maize, raised by this people, denote the 
substantial independence of the early Iroquois 
means of support. The journal commences in 
the following words. 

On the 17th day of July, 1653, I set out from 
Montreal, and embarked for a land, as yet un- 
known, accompanied by a young man of piety 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 333 

and courage, who has long been a resident of 
the country. 

July ISth. Following the course of the 'Saint 
Laurens,' we found nothing but breakers and 
impetuous rapids, full of rocks and shoals. 

19th. We passed into a beautiful lake, eight 
or ten leagues long. At evening an army of 
importune musquitoes gave us warning of a 
storm, by which we were drenched the whole 
night. 

20th. Islands, more beautiful than any in the 
world, here and there divide the placid stream. 
The land on the north side is excellent. To- 
wards the west there is a chain of high moun- 
tains, which we named after St. Maguerite. 

21st. The islands continue. In the evening 
we broke our bark canoe. It rained all night. 
The naked rocks served us for bed, covering and 
all. He who has faith in God, sleeps sweetly 
every where. 

22d. The rapids, which for a season are not 
navigable, compelled us to carry our baggage 
and canoe on our shoulders. On the opposite 
side I perceived a herd of wild cattle, feeding at 
their ease, in the greatest security. Four or five 
hundred are sometimes seen in this neighborhood 
in one drove. 

23d and 24th. Our guide being wounded, we 
were forced to encamp, a prey to the musquitoes. 
We took it patiently. A task the more difficult 
from there beinjr no cessation from this incon- 



334 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

venience, day nor night. One could rest more at 
ease with death staring him in the face. 

2oth. We found the river so rapid, we were 
compelled to cast ourselves into the water, and 
drag our canoe after us among the rocks, as a 
dismounted cavalier leads his horse by the bri- 
dle. In the evening we landed at the mouth of 
Lake St Igiiace, where the eel abounds in pro- 
digious quantities. 

26th. A storm of wind and rain obliged us to 
land this morning, after four hours' journey. We 
soon made a shelter. Stripping some neighbor- 
ing trees of their bark, we cast it on poles placed 
in the ground in a circle, the ends of which we 
brought together in the form of an arbor. This 
done, behold the house is finished. Ambition 
finds no door in such a palace — more delightful 
to us than if the roof was all gold. 

27th. We coasted along the banks of the lake, 
which are high and rocky on all sides, present- 
ing the frightful and picturesque. It is wonder- 
ful how such large trees can find root among so 
many rocks. 

28th. A storm of thunder and lightning, and 
deluge of rain, obliged us to remain under the 
protection of our canoe, which, being inverted, 
served for our shelter. 

29th and 30th. A continued storm of wind ar- 
rested us at the entrance of a great lake, named 
Ontario. We called it Iroquois lake, because the 
Iroquois nation have their villages on its southern 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 335 

borders. The Hiirons are on the northern side, 
more in the interior. This lake is about twenty 
leagues broad, and forty long. 

31st. We were this day obliged to make up 
for the time we lost by the storm. We traversed 
long islands, carrying our baggage, provisions, 
and canoe on our shoulders. It made the way 
seem long to us, poor weary voyagers. 

August 1st. We landed this day at a small 
village of Iroquois fishermen. 

2d. We began our march in the forest, and 
after travelling twelve or fifteen leagues, en- 
camped about sunset. 

3d. At noon we found ourselves on the banks 
of a river, one hundred or one hundred and 
twenty paces wide, on the other side of which 
there is a village of fishermen. 

An Iroquois, whom I had befriended at Mont- 
real, set me across in his canoe, and kindly bore 
me to the shore on his shoulders, being unwilling 
that I should put my feet into the water. Every 
one received me with joy, and these poor people 
enriched me with their poverty. They conduct- 
ed me to another village, about a league distant, 
where a young man of consideration made a 
feast for me, because I bore the name of his fa- 
ther, Ondessonk. The chiefs, one after another, 
came to harangue us. I baptized some dying 
children, w^ho perhaps were just spared for that 
sprinkling of the precious blood of Christ. 

4th. They inquired of us why we were clothed 
in black. I embraced the opportunity to speak 



336 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

to them of the mysteries of our religion. They 
brought me a dying infant, which I named Do- 
minique. Tliey no longer conceal these little in- 
nocents from us. They took me for a great 
medicine, thoogh I had for my prescription, 
only a pinch of sugar to give my patients. AVe 
pursued our journey. At noon we found a din- 
ner waiting for us. The nephew of the principal 
chief of the country is to lodge us in his cabin, 
being commissioned by his uncle to escort us, 
and furnish us with every delicacy the season 
affords, especially bread from new Indian corn, 
of a kind Avhich we roasted by the fire. We 
slept this night in the open air. 

5th. We travelled four leagues before arriving 
at the principal Onondaga village. I passed 
many persons on the way who wished me a 
good day, one calling me brother, another uncle, 
and another cousin. I never before had so many 
relations. 

At a quarter of a league from the village I 
began a speech in a solemn and commanding 
tone, which gained me great credit. 1 named 
all their chiefs, families and distinguished per- 
sons. I told them that peace and joy walked 
with me, that I scattered war among the distant 
nations. 

Two chiefs addressed me as I entered the 
village, with a welcome I had never experienced 
among savages. Their women and children all 
treated me in a friendly and respectful manner. 
In the evening, I called the princijial chiefs 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 337 

together, to make them two presents. One to 
wipe their faces, that they might regard me with 
kindness, and never show traces of sadness in 
tlieir countenances. The second to clear away 
the little distrust that might remain upon their 
minds. 

After considerable discourse, they retired to 
consult together, and then responded to my 
presents by two other gifts, richer than mine. 

6th. I was called to-day in different direc- 
tions to administer my medicine to dying child- 
ren. Some I baptized. I also confessed our 
old Huron Christians, and found that God is 
every where, that he is pleased to labor silently 
in the hearts where faith has reigned. He there 
builds a temple, where he is worshipped in spirit 
and in truth, that he may be forever blessed. 

In the evening my host took me one side, and 
told me with much affection that " he had al- 
ways loved me ; that he was now content, seeing 
that all the tribes of his nation desired nothing but 
peace ; that recently the Senecas had requested 
negotiations for peace to be commenced, and 
for that object had made several beautiful pre- 
sents ; that the Cayugas had brought three belts 
for that purpose ; that the Oneidas were gratified 
in having been, through his intervention, re- 
lieved ii:om a bad position, and wished only for 
peace ; that without doubt, the Mohawks would 
fall in with the others; that I must take cour- 
age, for I had the good wish of all." 



338 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

7th. I baptized a young captive taken from 
the Neuter nation, fifteen or sixteen years old, 
who had been instructed in the mysteries of our 
faith by a Huron convert. This was the first 
adult baptism made at Onondaga, for which we 
are indebted to the piety of a Huron. The joy 
I experienced, was an ample compensation for 
all past fatigues. When God disposes a soul, a 
way of safety is soon provided. 

9th. This day at noon a dismal cry arose, oc- 
casioned by the massacre of three Iroquois war- 
riors by the nation of the Cat,* which took place 
about a day's jonrney from the latter. This 
amounts to a declaration of war. 

10th. The deputies having arrived from the 
neighboring nations, after the customary procla- 
mations by the chiefs, that " all should assem- 
ble in the cabin of Ondessonk," I opened the 
council by a public prayer, on my knees, in a 
loud voice, in the Huron tongue. I astonished 
them exceedingly by mentioning them all by 
nations, tribes, lamilies and individuals, which 
amounted to no small number. This I was ena- 
bled to do from my notes, and it was to them as 
astonishing as it was novel. I told them I had 
nineteen messages to deliver. 

The first was from Onnontio, (Monsieur de 
Lawson, governor of New France,) who spoke by 
my mouth, in behalf of the Hurons, Algonquins 
and French, since all these nations acknowledge 

* The French :ipply the term Chat, to the Shavvnees, at the 
present lime. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 339 

him as their great captain. A large belt of 
wampum, a hundred small beads of green glass, 
which are the diamonds of the country, and an 
elk skin, accompanied my words. 

The second was to cut the bonds of eight vSe- 
neca captives, taken by our allies and carried 
to Montreal. 

The third was to break the bonds of some cap- 
tives of the Wolf nation,* taken about the same 
time. 

The fourth was to thank the people of Onon- 
daga for having restored to us a captive. 

The fifth was to thank the Senecas for having 
saved him from the torture. 

The sixth was to thank the Cayugas for having 
acquiesced in his deliverance. 

The seventh was to thank the Oneidas for 
having broken the bonds that held him captive. 

The eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, were 
for those four Iroquois nations, a tomahawk to 
each, for their new war with the nation of the 
Cat. 

The twelfth was to replace the lost head of 
the Senecas, (alluding to the capture of their 
chief by the Eriesf). 

The thirteenth was to strengthen their de- 
fences against their enemies. 

The fourteenth was to paint their warriors for 
battle. 

* The French apply this name to the Delawares. 
t Erie, is from Ererion, a Wyandot name, for the nation 
elsewhere called the nation of the Cat. 



340 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOfS. 

The fifteenth was to unite all their counsels. 
Three presents for that object, a belt of wam- 
pum, two small glass beads and an elk skin. 

By the sixteenth I opened the door of Annon- 
chiasse, to all their nations. This was equiva- 
lent to a declaration they would be welcome 
among us. 

By the seventeenth, I exhorted them to be- 
come instructed in the truths of our faith, and 
for that object I made three presents. 

By the eighteenth I required them, henceforth, 
never to lay in ambush for the Algonquin or 
Huron nations who might be on their way to 
visit our French habitations. This I accompa- 
nied with three presents. 

Finally, by the nineteenth present, I wiped 
away the tears from all the young warriors, shed 
for the death of their great chief, An-nen-cra-os, 
lately taken prisoner by the nation of the Cat. 

On the delivery of each present, they uttered, 
from the bottom of their chests, a profound ex- 
clamation, in testimony of their gratification. 
I was about two hours in delivering my speech, 
in which I assumed the tone of a chief, walking 
about, as is their custom, like an actor on the 
stage. 

After I had concluded, they assembled by 
nations and tribes, having called in a Mohawk, 
who by good chance happened to be there. 

After consulting together for two hours more, 
they called me among them, and seated me in 
a place of honor. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 341 

The chief who is principal spokesman and 
orator of the country, repeated fliithfully the 
substance of my whole speech, and after all had 
sung, in testimony of their joy, he directed me 
to pray to God, which I did very willingly. 
These exercises being finished, he addressed me 
in behalf of his nation. 

First, he thanked Onnontio for his good wishes. 
Two large belts of wampum. 

Second, in the name of the Mohawks, he 
thanked us for having restored five of their allies 
of the nation of the Wolf Two other belts. . 

Third, in the name of the Senecas, he thanked 
us for having rescued from the fire five of their 
people. Two other belts. Each present being 
followed by exclamations from the assembly. 

Another chief, an Oneida, arose, and deliver- 
ing four large belts, thanked Onnontio for having 
generously encouraged them to combat against 
their new enemies of the nation of the Cat, and 
for having exhorted them never to wage war 
against the French. " Thy words are admira- 
ble, Onnontio. They produce in my heart two 
contrary emotions. You animate me for war, 
and calm my heart with thoughts of peace. You 
are both a great warrior and peace-maker. 
Kind towards those you love, but terrible against 
your enemies. We all wish you love, and we 
will love the French for your sake." 

In conclusion, the Onondaga chief commenced 
speaking. "Hear, Ondessonk," said he; "five 
nations speak through my mouth. I have in 



342 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

my heart the sentiments of all the Iroquois na- 
tions, and my language is faithful to my heart. 
Tell Onnontio four things, which are the sab- 
stance of all our councils. 

First, we will acknowledge him of whom you 
have spoken, who is the master of our lives and 
to us unknown. 

Second, our national tree is this day planted 
at Onondaga; henceforth it will be the place of 
our councils, and treaties for peace. 

Third, we request you to select, on the banks 
of our great lake, a convenient place for a 
French habitation. Place yourself in the heart 
of our country, since you have possessed our 
inmost aftections. There we can go for instruc- 
tion, and from thence you can spread yourselves 
everywhere. Have for us the care of fathers, 
and we will entertain for you the respect of 
children. 

Fourth, we are engaged in new wars. Let 
Onnontio animate us for the scene. For him 
we will have no thoughts but peace." 

Their most valuable presents were reserved 
for the last four speeches. 

On the 15th of August we set out on our re- 
turn, with a goodly company. 

On the 16th we arrived at the entrance of a 
small lake.* In a large basin, half dry, we tasted 
the water of a spring which the Indians are 
afraid to drink, saying that it is inhabited by a 
demon who renders it stinking. I found it to 

* Onondaga, lake. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 343 

be a fountain of salt water, from which we made 
salt as natural as from the sea, some of which 
we shall carry to Quebec. This lake abounds 
in salmon, trout and other kinds offish. 

On the 17th we entered the outlet of the lejke 
and passed the river of the Senecas on the left, 
the addition of which enlarges the stream. It 
rises, they say, in two streams among the Cayu- 
gas and Senecas. After three leagues more of 
pleasant travelling we passed on our right the 
river Oneida, which seemed quite deep. A 
league farther we encountered some rapids, 
which gave the name to a village of fishermen. 

On the 1 8th my companions were engaged in 
putting their canoes in order. 

Aug. 19th. We journeyed on, upon the same 
river, which is of fine width, and everywhere 
deep, except some rapids, where we found it 
necessary to get into the water and draw the 
canoe to prevent its being broken by the rocks. 

20th. We arrived this day at the great Lake 
Ontario, called the Lake of the Iroquois. 

21st. The lake is rough to-day by reason of a 
violent wind which succeeded a storm of rain. 

22d. Coasting pleasantly along the shore of 
the lake, my companions shot a large stag. We 
contented ourselves with seeing it broiled; it 
being Saturday, a day of abstinence with us. 

23d. We arrived at a place they have destined 
a French habitation, where there are beautiful 
meadows, also fine fishing, and convenient ac- 
cess for the diftcrcnt nations. 



344 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

24th and 25th. We were detained by the wind. 

26th. Having embarked before the tempest 
had abated, our canoe upset, and we expected 
to be drowned, but finally gained an island, 
where we dried ourselves at leisure. 

27th. A temporary calm enabled us to reach 
the main land. 

28th and 29th. Our companions were detained 
by hunting. They were put in excellent spirits 
by the abundance of flesh, which is their para- 
dise. 

• 30th and 31st. We experienced nothing but 
wind and rain. They are sadly inconvenient 
to the poor voyager, who, having labored all 
day, is poorly lodged at night. 

Sept. 1st. I never saw so many wild deer; we 
have no desire to hunt Ihem. My companions 
could not resist killing three. What waste, for 
we left the whole, except the skins and the ten- 
derest pieces. 

2d. Travelling through large meadows, we 
saw in many places immense droves of cattle; 
their horns in some respects resemble the antlers 
of a stag. 

3d and 4th. We still found game in abun- 
dance. It seemed to follow us every where. A 
herd of twenty cows cast themselves into the 
water as if to meet us. 

5th. This day we descended the same dis- 
tance wliich took us two days to ascend, in 
consequence of the rapids and shoals. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 345 

6th. The falls of St. Lonis so frig-htened my 
companions, that they landed me four leagues 
above Montreal. But God gave me sufficient 
strength to reach it before noon, and celebrate 
the holy mass, of which I had been deprived 
during all my voyage. 

7th. I passed on and descended to the Trois 
Rivieres, where my companions desired to go, 
and on the 11th of September, 1653, arrived safely 
at Quebec. 

BURNING OF SCHENECTADY BY THE FRENCH 
IN 1690. 

The ancient Mohawk village, which stood at 
this place, was called Connocharie-guharie, or as 
Benson writes it, Oronowaragouhre, in allusion to 
the vast piles of flood- wood which were left every 
spring on the flats. The term Origoniwontl,* 
appears to have been applied, at a later period, 
to the village at the same place ; perhaps the site 
was a little varied in its particular location, and 
perhaps both names were applied, at the same 
time, to the same place, being diflerent modes 
of describing the position of the village. When 
the Dutch obtained a patent, embracing the site 
in 1661, from Gov. Stuyvesant, the Indian name 
of the Vlachte, or flats, was mentioned therein, 
and it does not appear from any author, that 
Schenectady — the original Mohawk name for 
the site of Albany — was applied to it till after the 
first surrender of the colony to England, four 

* Bleecker, vide Mitcliell, N. Y. Hist. Coll. 
45 



346 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

years after the date of this patent. The temporary 
retaking of the colony by the Dutch in 1675, did 
not affect the inland names generally, as the 
province was soon restored by treaty. 

The house of Stuart was now drawing to its 
close. Thirteen years after the last and final 
surrender of the province to the English crown, 
that crown passed, by a violent revolution, the 
great revolution of 1688, to another line, James 
the Second, who, as Duke of York and Albany, 
had given names to the two leading cities of the 
colony, was expelled, and William of Orange, 
who had ceded the New Netherland province, 
called to the British throne. To France, how- 
ever, this great change was, in the highest de- 
gree, unwelcome. She regarded it as a double 
triumph of the spirit of liberty and protestantism. 
That remote colonies, in another quarter of the 
world, and less than all, an obscure and unim- 
portant town, in one of the remotest of these 
colonies, had any influence, even the slightest, 
on these events, is most unlikely, and improba- 
ble. But the effects of the change appeared to 
fall most heavily on this little town. Small and 
remote as it was, it was a frontier, exposed to 
attack; and the barbarity of this attack, and the 
shock it gave to the moral sense of the country, 
were such as to leave a deep and lasting impres- 
sion. And it is hence, and not from the strength 
or political importance of the place, that the 
burning of Schenectady has ever been a sensitive 
point in our early history. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 347 

In the researches made by Mr. Brodhead, in 
the French state offices, he discovered the follow- 
ing letter from an officer mider Count Frontenac, 
givincr an account of this expedition, which is 
interesting, as being an official document, from 
the pen of the secretary of the very man who 
had planned and organized the expedition. The 
cold-blooded and cowardly barbarity of the mas- 
sacre itself, is unworthy of a Christian nation ; 
while the expedition, in its general object, may 
find an excuse, if not a justification, in the 
threatening, arrogant, and triumphant position 
of the Iroquois cantons, at this particular time. 
These cantons had, it will be recollected, landed 
on the island of Montreal, with fifteen hundred 
men, in the month of August, 1689, and com- 
pletely sacked and ravaged the island, killing men 
and cattle, and carrying blood and terror in their 
track. The very existence of the French colo- 
nies was a problem unsolved, and without some 
greater measure of energy than they had yet 
shown, these colonies were in danger of annihi- 
lation. Count Frontenac landed in Canada with 
the commission of its governor-general, in Sep- 
tember, 1689, witkin forty days after this inroad, 
and the first news he met, on entering the St. 
Lawrence, was the account of it. He determined 
to. retaliate, not by marching against the bold 
cantons, who had thus bearded the government, 
but against the English colonists who had fur- 
nished them arms, and were their allies and sup- 
porters. The result of this plan may be given 



348 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

in the writer's own words, premising, that Count 
Frontenac had passed some three or four months 
in his new governorship, and tlien selected the 
winter season to execute his schemes. 

" He allowed no more time to elapse before 
carrying them into execution, than was required 
to send oft^ some despatches to France, immedi- 
ately after which he determined to organize three 
different detachments, to attack those rebels at 
all points at the same moment, and to punish 
them, at various places, for having afforded pro- 
tection to our enemies, the Mohawks. The first 
party was to rendezvous at Montreal, and proceed 
towards Orange (Albany) ; the second at Three 
Rivers, and to make a descent on New York, at 
some place between Boston and Orange, and the 
third was to depart from Quebec, and gain the 
seaboard between Boston and Pentagouet, verg- 
ing towards Acadia. They all succeeded per- 
fectly well, and I shall now communicate to 
you the details. ^ ^ ^ * 

" The detachment which formed at Montreal, 
may have been coixiposed of about two hundred 
and ten men, namely ; eighty savages from the 
Sault, and from La Montague ; sixteen Algon- 
quins ; and the remainder Frenchmen, all under 
the command of the Sieur Le Moyne de Sainte 
Ilelcne, and Lieutenant Daillebout de Mantet, 
both of whom were Canadians. The Sieurs le 
Moyne d' Iberville and Repentigny de Montesson 
conunaiided under these. The best qualified 
Frenchmen were, the Sieurs de Bontepos and de 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 349 

La Brosse, Calvin ist officers, the Sieur la Moyne 
de Blainville, Le Bert du Chene, and la Marque 
de Montigny, who all served as volunteers. 
They took their departure from Montreal at the 
commencement of February. 

"After having- marched for the course of five or 
six days, they called a council to determine the 
route they should follow, and the point they 
should attack. 

"The Indians demanded of the French what 
was their intention. Messieurs de Sainte Helene 
and Mantet replied, that they had left in the 
hope of attacking Orange (Albany), if possible, 
as it is the capital of New York and a place of 
considerable importance, though they had no 
orders to that effect, but generally to act accord- 
ing as they should judge, on the spot, of their 
chances of success, without running too much 
risk. This appeared to the savages somewhat 
rash. They represented the difficulties and the 
weakness of the party for so bold an undertaking. 
There was even one among them who, with his 
mind filled with the recollections of the disasters 
which he had witnessed last year, inquired of 
our Frenchmen, "since when had they become 
so desperate ?" It was our intention, now, to 
regain the honor of which our misfortunes had 
deprived us, and the sole means to accomplish 
that, we replied, was to carry Orange, or to perish 
in so glorious an enterprise. 

"As the Indians, who had an intimate acquaint- 
ance with the localities, and more experience 



350 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

than the French, could not be brought to agree 
Avith the latter, it was determined to postpone 
coming to a conclusion until the party should 
arrive at the spot where the two routes separate, 
the one leading to Orange, and the other to 
Corlear (Schenectady). In the course of the 
journey, which occupied eight days, the French- 
men judged proper to diverge towards Corlear, 
according to the advice of the Indians; and this 
road was taken without calling a new counciL 
Nine days more elapsed before they arrived, 
having experienced inconceivable difficulties, 
and having been obliged to march up to their 
knees in water, and to break the ice with their 
feet, in order to find a solid footing. 

" They arrived within two leagues of Corlear 
about four o'clock in the evening, and were there 
harangued by the great Agniez, the chief of the 
Iroquois from the Sault. He urged on all to 
perform their duty, and to lose all recollections 
of their fatigue, in the hope of taking ample 
revenge for the injuries which they had received 
from the Mohawks at the solicitation of the 
English, and of washing themselves in the blood 
of the traitors. This savage was, without con- 
tradiction, the most considerable of his tribe; 
an honest man; as full of spirit, prudence and 
generosity as it was possible, and capable at the 
same time of the grandest undertakings. Shortly 
after, four squaws Avere discovered in a wigwam, 
who gave every information necessary for the 
attack on the town. The fire found in this hut 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES 351 

served to warm those who were benumbed, and 
they continued their route, having previously 
detached Giguieres, a Canadian, with nine In- 
dians, on the look out. They discovered no 
one, and returned to join the main body within 
one league of Corlear. 

" At eleven of the clock that night, they came 
within sight of the town, resolved to defer the 
assault until two o'clock of the morning. But 
the excessive cold admitted of no further delay. 

"The town of Corlear forms a sort of oblong 
square, \Yith only two gates; one opposite the 
road we had taken ; the other leading to Orange, 
which is only six leagues distant. Messieurs de 
Sainte Helene and de Mantet were to enter at 
the first, which the squaws pointed out, and 
which in fact was found wide open. Messieurs 
d' Iberville and de Montesson took the left, with 
another detachment, in order to make them- 
selves masters of that leading to Orange. But 
they could not discover it, and returned to join 
the remainder of the party. A profound silence 
was every where observed, until the two com- 
manders, who separated, at their entrance into 
the town, for the purpose of encircling it, had 
met at the other extremity. The wild Indian 
war-hoop was then raised, and the Entire force 
rushed simultaneously to the attack. M. de 
Mantet placed himself at the head of a detach- 
ment, and reached a small fort where the garri- 
son was under arms. The gate was burst in after 



352 HISTORV OF THE IROQUOIS. 

a good deal of difficulty, the whole set on fire, 
and all Avho defended the place were slaughtered. 

" The sack of the town began a moment before 
the attack of the fort. Few houses made any 
resistance. M. de Montigny discovered some, 
which he attempted to carry sword in hand, 
having tried the musket in vain. He received 
two thrusts of a spear — one in the body and 
the other in the arm. But M. de Sainte Helene 
having come to his aid, effected an entrance, 
and put every one of the garrison to the sword. 
The massacre lasted two hours. The remainder 
of the night was spent in placing sentinels, and 
in taking some rest. 

" The house belonging to the minister was or- 
dered to be saved, so as to take him alive, to 
obtain information from him. But as it was 
not known, it was not saved any more than the 
others. He was slain and his papers burnt be- 
fore he could be recognized. 

"At day-break, some men were sent to the 
dwelling of Mr. Coudre, who was major of the 
place at the other side of the river. He was not 
willing to surrender, and began to put himself 
on the defensive with his servants and some 
Indians; but as it was resolved not to do him any 
harm, in Consequence of the good treatment 
which the French had formerly experienced at 
his hands, M. d'Iberville and the great Agniez 
proceeded thither alone, promised him quarter 
for himself, and his people, and his property, 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 353 

whereupon he laid down his arms, on parole; 
entertaining them in his fort, and returned with 
them to see the commandant of the town. 

"In order to occupy the savages, who would 
otherwise have taken to drink, and thus ren- 
dered themselves unable for defence, the houses 
had already been set on fire. None were spared 
in the town but one house belonging to Coudre, 
and that of a widow who had six children, 
whither M. de Montigny had been carried when 
wounded. All the rest were consumed. The 
lives of between fifty and sixty persons, old men, 
women and children, were spared, they having 
escaped the first fury of the attack. Some twenty 
Mohawks Avere also spared, in order to show 
them that it was the English and not they, against 
whom the grudge was entertained. The loss on 
this occasion in houses, cattle and grain, amounts 
to more than four hundred thousands litres. 
There Ave re upAvards of eighty Avell-built and 
well- furnished houses in the town. 

" The return march commenced with thirty 
prisoners. The Avounded, AAdio Avere to be carried, 
and the plunder, with which all the Indians and 
some Frenchmen Avere loaded, caused considera- 
ble inconvenience. Fifty good horses A\^ere 
brought aAvay. Sixteen only of these reached 
Montreal. The remainder Avere killed for food 
on the way. 

" Sixty leagues from Corlear, the Indians began 
to hunt, and the French not being able to Avait 
for them, being short of provisions, continued 
46 



354 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

their route, having detached Messieurs d'lber- 
ville and Da Chesne with two savages before 
them to Montreal. On the same day, some 
Frenchmen, who doubtless were very much fa- 
tigued, lost their way. Fearful that they should 
be obliged to keep up with the main body, and 
believing themselves in safety, having eighty 
Indians in their rear, they were found missing 
from the camp. They Avere Availed for next day 
until eleven o'clock, but in vain, and no account 
has since been received of them. 

" Two hours after, forty men more left the main 
body without acquainting the commander, con- 
tinued their route by themselves, and arrived 
within two leagues of Montreal one day ahead, 
so that there were not more than fifty or sixty 
men together. The evening on which they 
should arrive at Montreal, being extremely fa- 
tigued from fasting and bad roads, the rear fell 
away from M. de Sainte Helene, who was in 
front with an Indian guide, and who could not 
find a place suitable for camping, nearer than 
three or four leagues of the spot where he ex- 
pected to halt. He was not rejoined by M. de 
Mantet and the others, until far advanced in the 
night. Seven have not been found. Next day 
on parade, about ten o'clock in the forenoon, a 
soldier arrived, who announced that they had 
been attacked by fourteen or fifteen savages, and 
that six had been killed. The party proceeded, 
somewhat afllicted at this accident, and arrived 
at Montreal at S o'clock P. M. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 355 

" Such, madame, is the account of what passed 
at the taking' of Corlear (Schenectady). The 
French lost but twenty-one men, namely, four 
Indians and seventeen Frenchmen. Only one 
Indian and one Frenchman were killed at the 
capture of the town. The others were lost on 
the road." 

Golden remarks, that the Mohawks sent a 
hundred warriors in pursuit, who fell upon the 
rear of the retreating army, and killed and took 
twenty-five persons. They also sent an embassy 
of condolence to Albany, assured the inhabitants 
of their friendship, and ability to defend the 
frontier, and inspired a renewed feeling of confi- 
dence, from the bold style and ennobling senti- 
ments of their address. It was, it is clear from 
this author, the renegade Caughnawagas, with 
Agniez at their head, that led the way in this 
sanguinary attack. 

ANTIQUE CURRENCY OF THE MANHATTANESE 
AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. 

There were two kinds of wampum in early 
use by the Indians, as a standard of value; the 
purple or black, and the white. The purple was 
made from the interior portions of the Venus 
mercenaria, or common conch. The white was 
wrought out of the pillar of the periwinkle. 
Each kind was converted into a kind of bead, 
by being rounded and perforated, so as to admit 
of being strung, on a fibre of deer's sinew. 
This was replaced, after the discovery, by linen 



356 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

thread. These beads were of unequal length, 
but were worked down, by the Atlantic-coast 
tribes, to very nearly the same size and thick- 
ness — which was about that of a crow's quill, 
or a pipe stem. The article was highly prized 
as an ornament, and as such constituted an ob- 
ject of traffic between the sea-coast and interior 
tribes. It was worn around the neck ; also as 
an edging for certain pieces of their garments; 
and when these strings were united, they formed 
the broad wampum belts,* by which solemn 
public transactions were commemorated. 

The article was also called by the Manhat- 
tanese, seawan, and Long Island, which yielded 
the crude shells abundantly, was hence denomi- 
nated by the sobriquet of Seawan acky,f or land 
of seawan shells. Its permanent name, how- 
ever, appears to have been Metoac, from the 
particular type of the sea-coast Algonquins, who 
occupied it. By the more northerly tribes who 
spread over New England, this treasured article 
was called peag and wampeng. The labor of 
making it by hand, without the use of iron or 

* The last belt of this kind, is believed to have been made 
to commemorate a grand pacification of the tribes, who as- 
sembled at Prairie du Chien, in 1825, to settle their boundary 
lines, under invitations from the government of the United 
States. The commissioners were the late General William 
Clark, of St. Louis, and Gen. Cass, of Michigan. 

t The termination acky, in this word, is the same, which in 
the Odjibwa of the present day, is generally written ackee, 
land or earth. In both the a is broad, and the sound, as well 
as the sense, so far as we can judge, is identical. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 357 

steel instruments, must have made it very costly, 
before the discovery. The old wampum was, 
indeed, a rude article, and the specimens disin- 
terred, now-a-days, from old Indian graves, and 
from the distant mounds of the west, denotes an 
article which in shape and size resembles, often, a 
horn-button mould, and at others, a heart-shaped, 
or an oval bead of large size. The Dutch in- 
troduced the lathe in making wampum, polished 
and perforated it with exactness, and soon had 
the monopoly of the supply of this article for the 
whole Indian trade.* 

It appears from the Dutch records at Albany, 
which abound in details of the Indian trade, 
that three purple beads of wampum, or seawan, 
or six of white, were equal to a styver, among 
the Dutch, or a penny among the English. 
Some variations, however, existed in its value, 
according to time and place. A single string of 
wampum of one fathom, rated at five shillings 
in New England, and is known, in New Nether- 
lands, to have reached as high as four guilders, 
or one dollar and sixty-six cents. Lands and 
merchandise were alike purchased of the na- 
tives for this oceanic kind of coin, which they 
esteemed more valuable than the precious me- 
tals, and it continued to be in vogue after the 
surrender of the colony to the English. It is 
stated on undoubted authority, that the first 

* The principal place of its manufacture is still at Hacken- 
sack, in New Jersey. 



358 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

church built on the (now) Jersey shore, opposite 
New York, was constructed out of funds con- 
tributed, from sabbath to sabbath, in grains of 
seawan, by the Dutch people. Coin was scarce, 
and paper money unknown. 

Golden tells us, that the Mohawks and their 
allies imposed a tribute on the Manhattanese and 
Metoacs, which was paid annually in the concho- 
logical currency of their sea coasts. Whether 
they ate the shell-fish, or took the shells as orna- 
ments, may be questioned. 

CHEROKEE TRADITION OF THE DELUGE. 
Cherokee tradition preserves an allegoric ver- 
sion of the deluge which is quite peculiar. The 
following outline of it, was communicated to 
me, in the summer of 184r3, by Mr. Stand Watie, 
a respectable and intelligent chief of that tribe, 
who was attending at the seat of government, 
as one of the delegates of his people, to com- 
promise certain difficulties which had arisen, 
between separate parties of the Cherokee nation, 
and the government. It is affirmed by Chero- 
kee tradition, said my informant, that the water 
once prevailed over the land, until every person 
was drowned, but a single family. The coming 
of this calamity was revealed by a dog to his 
master. This dog was very pertinacious in visit- 
ing the banks of a river, for several days, where 
he stood gazing at the water, and howling pite- 
ously. Being sharply spoken to, by his master, 
and ordered home, he revealed to him the com- 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 359 

ing evil. He concluded his prediction by say- 
ing, that the escape of his master and family 
from drowning, depended upon their throwing 
him into the water; that to escape drowning 
himself, he must make a boat, and put in it all 
he wished to save ; that it would then rain hard, 
a long time, and a great overflowing of the land 
would take place. 

The dog then told his master to look for a sign 
of the truth of what he had said, to the back of 
his neck. On turning round, and doing so, the 
dog's neck was raw and bare, the bone and flesh 
appearing. By obeying this prediction, one man 
and his family were saved, and from these res- 
cued persons, the earth, they believe, was again 
peopled. 

Stand Watie, who communicated this tradi- 
tion, is a brother of the late Elias Boudinot, who 
fell a victim to the desperate feud which grew 
out of the treaty of New Echota, — a treaty by 
which the Cherokee lands, east of the Missis- 
sippi, were ceded, in 1835, to the United States. 

The Cherokees, according to the same authori- 
ty, have also a tradition of their crossing a large 
water, apparently a river, which was done by 
tying grape vines together,"^ and making a sort 
of vine-bridge, over which they walked. 

When questioned of their origin and progres- 
sive migrations of an ancient date, their tradi- 
tions are narrowed down, very nearly, to the 

* This tradition of a vino-bridge, will also be observed 
among the traditions of the Iroquois. 



360 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

above outlines ; they add only, that they came 
from the east, and that their ancient progress was, 
uniformly, from the east. (Mr. John Wheeler.) 

ASIATIC ORIGIN OF THE AONIC, OR INDIAN 
RACE OF AMERICA. 

Observation and discovery have not, as yet, 
prepared ethnographers confidently to decide on 
the origin of certain remote nations. Neither geo- 
graphy nor philology has achieved the highest 
points at which they aim. But their progress, in 
late years, is of the most flattering kind. No 
age has equalled the present, in its spirit of dis- 
covery, and the track of useful and scientific in- 
quiry is annually becoming broader and deeper. 
In this labor, the American element of the 
world's population has bat just begun to assume 
efficiency, Avhile the spirit of literary and com- 
mercial enterprize is transporting to our shores 
the results of the researches and discoveries of 
the nations of the old world, who have done the 
most to advance the study of the knowledge of 
the original dispersion and affinities of the hu- 
man family. 

Of the original and wide-spread stock of the 
red race, who have filled Asia, and no small 
part of Africa, there are certain leading physical 
traits, which are readily recognized, although the 
highest and lowest points, in the physiological 
chain, exhibit very marked differences. But, in 
proportion as inquiries are pushed, there appear 
to be general coincidences, which mark their 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 361 

ancient affiliation, in the mental structure and 
tendencies of the several tribes and nations. 
Lano^uag^e, while it constitutes the most fixed 
and precise points of the mental peculiarities 
and progress of nations, also furnishes, at the 
same time, the most certain and irrefragible 
clue to affinities; and it is hence that, in modern 
times, so much stress has been laid on the study 
and comparison of distant and barbarous lan- 
guages, as helps to history. 

That parts of the oriental stock of the red man 
should have reached the American continent, 
and expanded and flourished here, in early ages 
of the world, and ere history arose to take cog- 
nizance of the fact, is no cause of wonder or 
surprise. But it is a subject of unabated interest 
and curiosity, to seek to determine, as well as 
our growing materials will permit, from which 
division or generic subtype of the oriental race, 
the American tribes are descended. To us, who 
are placed in proximity with them, and whose 
sympathies and duties, in relation to them, are 
in the most active exercise, this inquiry is one 
of deep historical interest. Nor are the means 
we possess, of pursuing the subject, wanting. 
Our intercourse with nations, based upon the 
British element of civilization, and re invigor- 
ated, in these sweeping latitudes, with all the 
prime sources of the added Anglo-Saxon and 
Anglo-Norman power, in letters, arts and arms, 
is extended, at this day, to the utmost parts of 
the world. China, the last nation to come into 
47 



362 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

a free intercourse, on the basis of treaties, is now 
laid open to investigation, and we have seen 
museums of its curious and antique arts, and 
highly characteristic fabrics, displayed, even on 
these coasts. To study its history and antiqui- 
ties, is one of the first labors that at this moment 
invites attention. A people who profess to have 
had the knowledge of the mariner's compass, 
the art of printing, and even the composition of 
gunpowder, ages before these discoveries were 
known to Europe, cannot present a barren field 
for study. Their literature alone, is an unex- 
plored mine, and may throw a flood of light on 
the early or Indian epochs of American history. 
But there is a still more inviting, perhaps be- 
cause a still more isolated and unknown people, 
who demand scrutiny. They are the Japanese. 
Keeping out of the family compact of nations, 
and yet, in many respects, eminently entitled to 
the inquisitive spirit of letters and commerce, 
this people hold an interesting position, as one 
of the families of the red races of Asia, who may 
have contributed an element to the early me- 
chanical tribes who first entered the precincts 
of the sea coasts, and interior valleys of Mexico. 
The chain of islands which connects the larger 
Japanese group, directly with the peninsula of 
Okotsk, would have made, as it does at this 
day, an easy and ready transit, to that remarka- 
ble projection of the Asiatic coast. And it is 
just at the northern end of this chain, it will be 
recollected, that tlie Aleutian islands commence ; 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 363 

that elongated group, which connects the prac- 
tical and easy navigation, in small vessels, of 
the Asiatic main, wdth the peninsula of Ona- 
laska, on the American side. These two groups 
of islands, with the seas of Japan and Okotsk, 
are very indicative of the geological formation of 
those coasts, and their structure and suscepti- 
bility of change, by oceanic action, constitute in 
this view, ah object of research. An object, 
allow me to say, which is yet more interesting, 
when it promises to denote the mode of solving 
our hardest problem, namely, how the various 
classes of American quadrupeds reached the 
coast. For we cannot, on any sound principles, 
admit that the armadillo, the ichneumon, the 
tapir, the jaguar, the lama, the monkey, and 
other tropical species, could ever have been at- 
tracted to or endured the extreme frigid latitudes 
of Behring's straits."^ 

Of the wide-spread stock of the Ta-ta type, 
who stretch over the vast plains of central and 
northern Asia, from the seas of Japan and Okotsk, 
across the coterminous latitudes of both Chinese 
and Independent Tartary, we are only informed 
with respect to their general manners and cha- 
racter. Of the exact elements from which eth- 
nological conclusions are to be drawn, we are, 
as yet, certainly in America, almost wholly de- 
ficient. The Chinese type of the Tartaric stock, 

* It must be recollected, that London, the garden of Eno-- 
land, yielding the highest floral catalogue of the British isles, 
lies in 59°, the exact parallel of the Aleutian peninsula. 



364 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

has prevailed over, and incorporated itself so 
readily with the Chcua* proper, as to leave it 
probable that their original relations, in a philo- 
logical sense, were greater than has generally 
been supposed. Viewed by itself, the Chinese 
language appears to be the most remote from the 
American group, of any in all Asia. It is, as is 
well known, monosyllabic, and if we except the 
Otomi of Mexico, no language, on this plan of 
utterance, has been found in America, although 
it is to be remarked, that many of the North 
American languages, however compounded and 
concrete, in their present spoketi character, are, 
without any doubt, founded on monosyllabic and 
dissyllabic roots. It is further to be remarked, 
in examining the Tata and Chena families, that 
the latter have reduced their language to writing, 
on the symbolic plan, partly of picture writing, 
and partly of hieroglyphics: from which, we 
may draw two conclusions ; Jirst, that the people 
are a very ancient one, and second, that they 
have borrowed nothing, in their system of nota- 
tion, from either the Hebrew, Egyptian, or Greek 
alphabets. With regard to the system itself, it 
appears to be the most cumbrous and jejune, and 
the least suited to advance the progress of the 
human mind, that could have been devised. 
With its tens of thousands of concrete charac- 
ters, it is a most complete exemplification, in the 
notation of a language, of what the American 
tribes have arrived at, in the compounding of 

* The word is so pronounced in the celestial kingdom. 



■i 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 365 

their spoken dialects. Each character of it, like 
each word of these dialects, is a congeries of 
abbreviated combinations. The syllabical sys- 
tem of the Cherokee, which expresses every 
combination of that language by eighty-six cha- 
racters, is as far superior to it, on the score of 
ease and facility in learning it, as it is possible 
to conceive one system of recording articulate 
sounds, may be superior to another. 

When we cast our view to the northern lati- 
tudes of Asia, spreading across the great valleys 
of the Lena, the Yenissi, and the Obe, quite to 
the gulf of Obe, on the Arctic ocean, and the foot 
of the Ural mountains, we have still less mate- 
rial, of an exact and ethnographic character, to 
judge how far, if to any extent, these higher lati- 
tudes furnished an early impulse, or contributed 
to the early peopling of this continent. Of all 
the divisions of Asia, we know, indeed, least, and 
are therefore the least prepared to judge, of the 
distinctive traits and character of the native in- 
habitants of Siberia. That the Samoides, the 
Ostiacs, the Tunguissians, and the Koriaks, roved 
over these vast steppes and defiles, making wars, 
and pursuing game, and plunder, is only an evi- 
dence of generic traits of barbarism, which are 
common to distant branches of the human family, 
under adverse, but similar circumstances, be- 
tween whom, however, there may be no direct 
affinities. 

An opinion has been expressed, unfavorable 
to the probability of strong affinities to the Ame- 



366 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

rican tribes being found to exist among the race, 
SO early and so generally known to the maritime 
states of Europe, who extend between the banks 
of the Indus and the Ganges. It was from this 
race, admitting that they had also possessed 
themselves, essentially, of the East India islands, 
that Columbus doubtless drew his conclusions 
of identity, from their physical type. But if he 
was, as is thought, in error, the opinion before ad- 
vanced renders it the more desirable that the 
basis of our knowledge of the man of India proper 
should be enlarged, and more fully investigated. 
It is in this quarter of Asia, that England, our 
mother country, has strongly set her foot, and in 
which we may expect, in the proper course of 
events, that a great Anglo-Indian empire will 
arise, basing itself on letters, Christianity, and 
high civilization. Already, the archives of British 
and European letters have been greatly enriched 
from this quarter. The labors of Sir William 
Jones alone, are a monument to his genius. It 
is in this country that the dreadful slavery of 
casts is so inveterately fixed, that widows, under 
a mistaken view of d uty, piety, or affection, mount 
the funereal pyre ; that the dreadful infanticide of 
females is tolerated by public sentiment; that 
the blood of idol worshippers is poured out from 
streaming hooks of steel, fastened in the whirling 
body, and that the aged cast themselves into the 
Ganges, under the impression that its waters are 
sacred, and offer a pious solace for human woes. 
Ideas, which are so remote from all that charac- 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 367 

terizes the Indian mind here, as to leave hut lit- 
tle probability of affiliation with that stock. Phi- 
lologists perceive in the nations of Hindostan, 
the elements, not of the transpositive languages 
of our hunter races, but of an ancient, and wholly 
diverse stock, which, at an unknown period of 
migration, threw itself westward upon Europe, 
and has left indubitable traces of its effects in 
modifying human speech, in the great Indo-Ger- 
manic language. 

To Arabia, the southwest corner of Asia, allu- 
sion has been made, as having opened recent 
negotiations of friendship and commerce, with 
the United States. Travellers, who have visited 
that remarkable country, and crossed its sandy 
deserts ^ — among whom we recognize a distin- 
guished countryman,* learned in the oriental 
languages — represent its inhabitants as cling- 
ing, with such fixedness, to their original cus- 
toms and traits of character, even in minor 
points, that little change would seem to have 
supervened since the days of Abraham. The 
Arabic is one of the oldest written and culti- 
vated languages. Inscriptions in the ancient 
Hymaritic character, recently found upon its 
rocks, and decyphered by Prof Wm. W. Turner, 
go back to the patriarchal ages.f Europe owes 
to that people, some of its earliest elements of 
knowledge; the whole civilized world daily 

* Dr. Robinson. 

t Trans. Am. Ethnological Society, vol. 1. 



368 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

practises the use of its symbols for numbers ; and 
it is impossible that it should have furnished 
any increment to the leading tribes of America, 
without some fixed traces of it being left in 
their languages, customs, and rites. None such 
are known to exist. 

Palestine, together with Syria and the whole 
of ancient Asia Minor, has claims to investiga- 
tion, not so much perhaps from its having been 
the original seat of mankind, and the cradle of 
nations, as from the early expressed, and oft-re- 
peated opinion, that the American Indians are 
lineal descendants of the Jews. It is not in- 
tended to discuss this subject here, but merely 
to name it as one of the topics connected with 
the oriental origin of the Indians, which are not, 
perhaps, exhausted. But if the discussion be re- 
newed, it requires to be conducted on principles 
of more exactness, philologically speaking, and 
less likelihood to be swayed by theory, than it 
has yet received. To examine it candidly, we 
must have the two elements of comparison, 
namely, the Hebrew and Indian, or Aonic, com- 
plete. We not only require to place the lan- 
guages side by side, but also the striking and pe- 
culiar rites, religious ceremonies, and mental 
idiocrasy of each. Nor should we hold our judg- 
ments under so easy a rein, as to be satisfied 
with identity, where there is only resemblance. 

The theory of the Hebrew origin of the Indian 
tribes, has been a popular one, from the very 
foundation of the colonies. It is as old, as we 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 369 

are told by Forster,^ in the time of Grotius, who 
advanced it. Nor is it, in one respect, namely, 
the general question of philology, as destitute of 
plausibility, as the weak proofs and over-strained 
resemblances of some writers have really shown 
it to be. If not of Jewish, they may be of Per- 
sian or Mesopotamian origin. Granting that 
they are of the Shemitic family, which appears 
quite manifest, they are more likely to li^ave been 
cotribes of the stock from which the Jews were 
descended, than lineal descendants of this pe- 
culiar people. We may account for some of the 
linguistic coincidences, mentioned by Boudinot, 
as being of a generic character, and shall at the 
same time keep on grounds which take in coin- 
cidences of another kind. It is difficult to admit, 
that a people, whose history is, in all its phases, 
so peculiar and striking as that of the Jews, 
marked as its rites were, with blood, should have 
given origin to the American tribes, without 
having transmitted some unequivocal proofs of it. 
The cleaving of the sea — the delivery of the law, 
amid thunders and lightnings — the smiting of 
the rock for the out-flow of a river in a dry bar- 
ren — the raising of the brazen serpent — the 
guiding pillar of cloud by day and fire by nighty 
and the standing miracle of the manna, were 
acts and revelations of such a character, as never 
to have been likely to be completely obliterated 
from tradition. The tribes of Judali and Benja- 
min, who appear to compose all the known Jews 

* Nortliern Voyages. 
48 



370 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of the world, have never forgotten these great 
events although dispersed among all nations, and 
it is reasonable to suppose that the tribes of the 
Israelitish monarchy, were not less tenacious of 
their customs and peculiar traits. Yet, what 
the eventual character of changes may have been, 
on a people who went forth under the judicial 
judgment of heaven, it might be rash and pre- 
mature to decide. According to Esdras, the ten 
tribes carried away by the Assyrians, some seven 
hundred and twenty-one years before the Christ- 
ian era, determined to cross the Euphrates, and 
seek a country where man had never dwelt, by 
which the central and interior parts of Asia, be- 
yond the Euphrates, were doubtless meant. 

We have thus cast a rapid glance over the 
varied surface of Asia, and its leading nations of 
the present era, omitting the Grecian element, 
which is of the Japhetic line, and a single other 
vShemitic element, namely, the Chaldean and 
Persic type of man, who, at an early day, relin- 
quished the knowledge of the true God, adopled 
the dreamy and sublimated notions of a sud of 
the universe, or omnipresent first cause, which led 
to the philosophic religion of Zoroaster, and re- 
sulted in the priesthood of the magi, and the 
symbolic or real worship of the sun, moon and 
stars. It is to this portion of Asia, renowned as 
it is for its 'early history, the shifting panorama 
ofits ancient political revolutions, and the subtile 
forms of its notions of a transcendental deity ; 
that we would point, as one of the most inte- 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 371 

resting fields of ethnolog-ical study at the present 
time, in reference to the early American tribes; 
and particularly of the leading stocks, who from 
era to era, seated themselves in Mexico, and in 
Central and South America. 

To Africa, it is only necessary to aJlude, to 
denote how important, in an illustrative point 
of view, the history of its discovery and progres- 
sive coast colonies are, in connection with the 
question of the first knowledge of mankind of 
the American continent. The Egyptian, the 
Grecian and the Roman element of its early 
colonies, offer tlie most profound topics of re- 
search to the ethnologist. 

Wherever the early families of mankind went, 
however, it was in Europe that civilization was 
destined to rise to its highest forms. The im- 
pulse of migration, which rose in Asia, spread 
westward with a force which carried its current 
rapidly from the shores of the Mediterranean, 
until population had reached over its central 
latitudes to the farthest confines of Scandinavia 
and the north, from which it afterAvards began 
to react against the seats of empire, whence it 
had, itself, taken its early rise. Such, at least, 
are the modern teachings of ethnography and 
comparative philology. 

In this onrush of nations, there was carried 
westward from the starting point, a rude alpha- 
bet consisting of some sixteen primary charac- 
ters, mostly composed of angular strokes, which 
bore, in its western phases, the names of Etrns- 



372 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

can, Celtic, ancient Gallic, Celtiberic, Old Erse, 
Runic, and other terms. Each of these terms 
denoted peculiarities, either in the form of some 
of the characters, or in the sounds of which they 
were the symbols; but there is full and suffi- 
cient evidence to show that they, one and all, 
arose from the Mediterranean alphabetic ground 
forms. When the Roman alphabet foUoAved the 
eagles of its power and civilization into central 
Europe, and became the medium of the ex- 
pression of the European languages and early 
literature, they found inscriptions of this an- 
cient angular alphabet, on rocks and precipices, 
designed, doubtless, generally, to record the 
names and deeds of their primary heroes. By 
far the greater part of the ancient Celtic records 
were made on smooth blocks of hard beech 
wood, called buken, in the Anglo-Saxon, and 
hence our term of hook. The points of Europe 
in which the rock inscriptions, in this character, 
have been found and studied with most suc- 
cess, are its^ extreme westerly and northerly 
shores, islands and prolongations. It will be 
sufficient to denote, how interesting and import- 
ant this topic becomes, among the incentives 
to the study of the ancient period of American 
history, when it is added, that an inscription in 
this antique character, consisting of twenty-four 
letters or figures, has been found, on a small 
stone, in one of the great mounds of the Ohio 
valley. It is thus to be regarded as an intrusive 
element of western civilization, thrust in among 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 373 

monuments, and a race of tribes, whose general 
traditions, and whose history, so far as it can be 
deduced, show tliem to be orientals. And the 
remark may here be made, assuming the disco- 
very of the western inscription to be indisputable, 
that two leading types of the human race, start- 
ing at the original point of their separation, say 
in the valley of the Euphrates, and taking oppo- 
site points of the compass, have thus met, in the 
valley of the Mississippi, after having travelled 
by land and sea around the globe. Hoav has 
this happened ? And how, after the lapse of 
probably not less than three thousand years, are 
we to trace the evidences of this early, long pro- 
tracted and extraordinary migration ? Are we 
to sit down with hands folded, because there is 
no written history? Are we to disregard the 
strong and important points and declarations of 
the inspired volume ? Can we gather nothing 
from monumental data? From astronomy? 
From the state of ancient arts and inscriptions, 
in both hemispheres? From the character of 
the mind, as evinced by ancient forms of wor- 
ship? Or from language, the most enduring 
and characteristic of all evidences of the affilia- 
tion of nations ? 

THE LOST COLONY OF KASONDA. 

It is now one hundred and seventy-five years 
since there was a chief, named Karrakontea, 
living in the Onondaga country, w^ho exercised 
the greatest influence over his people of the 



374 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Onondaga canton. This canton were then nu- 
merous, proud and warlike. They cultivated 
the zea maize in their rich valleys. They hunted 
the deer on their hills, and their war parties ut- 
tered their shouts of defiance on the distant Illi- 
nois, and under the walls of Quebec. 

Karrakontea had communicated personally, 
or otherwise, with the European races who had 
settled respectively, on the waters of the Coha- 
tatea or Hudson, and the St. Lawrence. His 
war parties had visited other shades of the white 
race of men, who had planted themselves, fear- 
fully, on the waters of the Chesapeake, and at 
several points on the wide stretching shores of 
Virginia, and he was well acquainted with the 
several efforts at colonization, which had been 
made during the next preceding period of forty to 
fifty years, on the storm-beaten shores of New 
England. 

He was a sachem of a wise and benevolent 
character. He saw himself and his people 
seated at very remote points from the sea- 
board, where these embryo colonies had planted 
themselves. They existed, moreover, in each 
case, among particular branches of the Indian 
race, against whom his people warred, and some 
of whom they had before partially conquered 
or laid under tribute. He had, therefore, no 
objections to see Europeans come among them. 
It gave neither himself, nor his fellow counsel- 
lors of the Iroquois league, pain to observe that 
the fierce Manhattans and Narragansetts, or the 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 375 

counselling Lenapees and Powhattans, were 
subject to dwindle away in numbers, and be- 
come less formidable enemies to themselves. 
He clearly saw and acknowledged the great 
benefits which they all, as a race, had derived 
from the introduction of foreign goods and manu- 
factures, which they could readily obtain, at 
various points, in exchange for their furs. Nay, 
he pointedly saw the advantages to be reaped 
by them from the introduction of a superior type 
of arts and knowledge, to any which the red 
men possessed. And he came to the conclusion 
of asking the foreign race, to send some persons 
to come and " sit down" with them, that his 
people might learn some of those superior arts 
and practices, which he observed that the white 
race, everywhere, more or less, possessed. To 
this proposition his fellow sachems and people 
assented ; and the invitation was given to the 
French, who had proved themselves, at a very 
early date, not only the most enterprising, in 
pushing their way from the mouth of the St. 
Lawrence westward into the interior of the con- 
tinent; but who fell into the manners and cus- 
toms of the Indian race with the best grace, 
and rendered themselves very acceptable to this 
people, wherever they went. One reason of this 
was, perhaps, to be found in the custom of taking 
wives of the red stock of men, wherever they 
settled or dwelt; another was, doubtless, in a 
trait of national comity, which forbade their ever 
turning to ridicule the religious and superstitious 



376 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

cereoionies of the ludian priests and metais. 
Whatever might be the causes, however, which 
led to the selection of the French, as the early 
teachers of the Onondagas, there can be no 
doubt of the fact. There are old traditions of 
Indians passed away — letters and allusions in 
the miscellaneous history of the times, and 
monuments and ruins, curious and wonder- 
provoking, in the Onondaga country, to attest 
the truth of this transaction, and to show that 
a colony was actually planted in that country; 
that it spread and flourished, for a few years; 
eventually gathered into it the gold-hunting ele- 
ment of the Spanish adventurers, which had 
overturned the empires of the Incas, and of the 
Montezumas, and that it finally and horribly 
perished in one night, in a field of blood. The 
rest of this extraordinary tale of colonization and 
wild adventure, I state in the words of the late 
Govenor De Witt Clinton; a man whose com- 
prehensive mind and grasping literary tastes 
led him to enter as an efficient laborer into the 
field of American antiquities; a man, whose re- 
searches were always governed by the spirit of 
philosophy, reacting on the well-provided mate- 
rials of history, which dwelt in his own mind; 
and who ever sought to make the solemn instruc- 
tions of the past, admonitory to the present and 
future, particularly in our singularly prosperous 
political career of government, population and 
vast resources. Not only do the references to 
books sustain this passage of his early researches; 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 377 

but SO far as I could draw living tradition from 
its recesses in the Iroquois mind, they most satis- 
factorily cover the general incidents of the colo- 
ny, and its utter and sudden extirpation — this 
only being added, to render the fury of the natives 
intense and most merciless, namely, that it was 
led on by the fanatical hatred of the Iroquois 
priesthood. 

"From the Jesuits' journal, it appears, that in 
the year 1666, at the request of Karakontie, an 
Onondaga chieftain, a French colony was di- 
rected to repair to his village, for the purpose 
of teaching the Indians arts and sciences, and to 
endeavor, if practicable, to civilize and Christ- 
ianize them. 

"We learn from the sachems, that at this 
time the Indians had a fort, a short distance 
above the village of Jamesville, on the banks of 
a small stream, a little above which, it seems, 
the chieftain, Karakontie, would have his new 
friends sit down. Accordingly they repaired 
thither, and commenced their labors, Avhich 
being greatly aided by the savages, a few months 
only were necessary to the building of a small 
village. 

" This little colony remained for three years 
in a very peaceable and flourishing situation, 
during which time much addition was made to 
the establishment, and, among others, a small 
chapel, in which the Jesuit priest used to collect 
the barbarians, and perform the rites and cere- 
monies of his church. 
49 



378 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

"But the dire circumstance which was to 
bury this colony in oblivion, and keep their his- 
tory in secret, was yet to come. About this 
time (1669), a party of Spaniards, consisting of 
twenty-three persons, arrived at the village, 
having for guides some of the Iroquois, who had 
been taken captive by the southern tribes. It 
appears evident that this party came up the 
Mississippi, as it has been ascertained that they 
passed Pittsburgh, and on to Olean point; where, 
leaving their canoes, they travelled by land. 
They had been informed by some of the south- 
ern tribes, that there was a lake at the north of 
them, whose bottom was covered with a sub- 
stance shining and white,* and which they took, 
from the Indians' descriplion, to be silver; and 
it is supposed that the idea of enriching them- 
selves upon this treasure, induced them to take 
this long and desperate journey ; for silver was 
the first thing inquired for, on their arrival, and 
on being told that none was ever seen in or 
about the Onondaga lake, they became almost 
frantic, and seemed bent upon a quarrel with 
the French, and charged them with having 
bribed the Indians, and even those who had 
been their guides, that they would not tell 
where the mines might be found. Nor dare 
they, finding the French influence to prevail, 
venture out on a search, lest the Indians might 

* The salt crystallizes at the present time on the grass and 
upon the naked earth in the immediate vicinity of the springs, 
though the water of the lake is fresh. 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 379 

destroy them. A compromise was however 
made, and both parties agreed that an equal 
number of each should be sent on an exploring 
expedition, which was accordingly done. But 
the effect of this, upon the minds of the Indians, 
was fatal. Upon seeing these strangers prowling 
the woods with various kinds of instruments, 
they immediately suspected some plan to be in 
operation to deprive them of their country. 

" Nor was this jealousy by any means hushed 
by the Europeans. The Spaniards averred to 
the Indians that the only object of the French 
was to tyrannize over them; and the French, 
on the other hand, that the Spaniards were plot- 
ting a scheme to rob them of their lands. 

" The Indians, by this time becoming equally 
jealous of both, determined in private council, 
to rid themselves of such troublesome neighbors. 
For aid in this, they sent private instructions to 
the Oneidas, and Cayugas, who only Avanted a 
watchword to be found immediately on the 
ground. The matter was soon digested, and the 
time and manner of attack agreed upon. A lit- 
tle before day-break, on All Saints' day, 1669, the 
little colony, together with the Spaniards, were 
aroused from their slumbers by the roaring of 
fire-arms, and the dismal war-whoop of the sav- 
ages. Every house was immediately fired or 
broken open, and such as attempted to escape 
from the flames met a more untimely death in 
the tomahawk. Merciless multitudes overpow- 
ered the little band, and the Europeans were soon 



880 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

either lost in death, or writhing in their blood ; 
and such was the furious prejudice of the savages, 
that not one escaped, or was left alive to relate 
the sad disaster. 

" The French in Canada, on making inquiries 
respecting the fate of their friends, were informed 
by the Indians that they had gone towards the 
south, with a company of people who came from 
thence, and at the same time showing a Spanish 
coat of arms, and other national trinkets, con- 
firmed the Canadian French in the opinion that 
their unfortunate countrymen had indeed gone 
thither, and in all probability perished in the 
immense forests. This opinion was also mea- 
sureably confirmed by a Frenchman who had 
long lived with the Senecas, and who visited 
the Onondagas at the time the Spaniards were 
at the village, but left before the disaster, and 
could only say that he had seen them there." 

Thus lamentably perished the first Christian 
colony, which, so far as is known, was ever at- 
tempted to be settled in the interior of western 
New York. A plan, fearful in itself, for a mo- 
ment's reflection must have made it evident to 
the French, that they were not going to plant 
themselves in the midst of a mentally broken 
down people, as were the races of Peru, or Mexi- 
co, who had long given up their personal freedom 
and rights to be vested in a hereditary sovereign ; 
but among a people who retained all these rights 
in the fullest manner, who were proud, bold and 
jealous to a fault, esteeming themselves superior 



TOPICAL INQUIRIES. 381 

to all other men, and who had a fixed and nu- 
merous priesthood, bent on retaming their sway; 
in a word, among the Konoshioni, or indomita- 
ble Iroquois. It was a colony, founded in love, 
cursed by the spirit of gold, and extinguished in 
blood. 



CHAPTER XI. 



LANGUAGE. 



Structure of the Class of American Languages — Com- 
parative Vocabulary of the Iroquois and its Cognate 
THE Wyandot. 

Languages are the slow growth of centuries. 
Words do not rapidly change. They are like 
coins and medals, and carry along evidence of 
the parental mint. A child, who has, from its 
infancy, heard the name for father and mother, 
earth and air, fire and water, will strongly receive 
these sounds, and not depart from them, while 
his association of ideas remains unchanged. 
Some defects of utterance, in kings or rulers, 
greatly beloved, may be supposed to have had 
imitators, and produced some effects, but they 
must ever be small. The first sensible effect in 
the generation of a new dialect, may be sup- 
posed to arise from a change of national resi- 
dence to a remote quarter of the world. New 
associations here come in — objects of another 
kind present themselves, and other motives ex- 



LANGUAGE. 383 

cite the mind, and tend to obliterate early im- 
pressions. Migration naturally treads in the steps 
of migration. One country is exchanged for 
another ; and by hearing new languages spoken, 
the old may be supposed to stand in danger of 
some innovations. 

We may suppose the interposition of seas to 
have had the greatest effect, in leading men to 
depart from vocal standards of pronunciation, 
and in producing permanent changes. The 
vowel sounds are mutable, and melt into each 
other, in proportion as they are shortened, or 
drawn out, or otherwise articulated. We know 
that barbarous nations mouth sounds, and exer- 
cise a great range of enunciation, producing 
changes. The consonants admit of some ex- 
changes ; but are generally fixed ; and it is to 
these that we owe, more than to any other cause, 
the perpetuity of old pronunciations in utterance. 
Hebrew notation availed itself of this principle, 
and as it is well known, left out, in its earlier 
periods, any provision beyond at least two cha- 
racters,* for recording the vowels. Still, it must 
require a very long epoch, before a radical change 
can be affected. This is very clearly demon- 
strated to the student of the English language, 
who perceives, at this day, the roots of many 
nouns and verbs in the Gothic, German, Ice- 
landic and other northern languages, which ap- 
pear to have thrown parts of their vocabularies 
into the great Anglo-Saxon or Thiudic stock. 

* Aleph and Yoth. 



384 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Centuries have not been sufficient to obliterate 
these sounds, and the general evidences, which 
link together this great Indo-Germanic type 
of languages are clear and satisfactory, at this 
moment. 

Could we obtain evidence, as clear as this, we 
should bring together in one generic family, the 
Iroquois and the Algonquin, the Dacotah and 
the Appalachian, and other northern stocks, 
which we are now obliged to regard as differ- 
ent languages, only because their actual vocabu- 
laries are so diverse. In other respects — in their 
grammatical principles — the transpcsitive char- 
acter of words — the laws of concord which 
they establish between persons and objects, and 
the curious principles of their mode of com- 
pounding words — they are, in fact, one great 
generic group, to which Mr. Duponceau has ap- 
plied the term polysynthetic. We have only to 
become better acquainted with the parent stocks, 
in the other hemisphere, to perceive analogies 
which appear now but feeble. The comparison 
of concrete vocabularies is not sufficent for this 
purpose, although it has been heretofore chiefly 
relied on. Philologists must look up and search 
out the principles by which vowels and conso- 
nants necessarily change. Their juxtaposition 
to an antagonistical letter, must affect them — 
the principles of euphony, in a savage tongue, 
are ill explained. But we see, everywhere, that 
these tribes lay great stress on them themselves. 
Of the laws of consonants, as effected by minute 



LANGUAGE. 385 

traits in the physical organization of the tongue 
and glottis, we have better cognizance. But 
above all, the inquiry should be directed to the 
formation of generic comparative tables of roots 
and radical particles, expressing the same gene- 
ral ideas, as thought, motion, sound. It must 
be evident, to observers in our aboriginal philo- 
logy, that different nations, and even remote 
tribes of the same ethnographical family, do not 
designate all objects by the same traits or charac- 
teristics, where the vocabulary is admitted to be 
essentially the same, and consequently the words 
must differ. Thus one tribe calls a horse the beast 
that bears burthens; another laexelj pack; an- 
other the beast of solid, or unsplit hoofs; an- 
other simply by a word which we may translate 
servant, or dog. Before vocabularies can be 
rightly compared, we should be sure that the na- 
tives meant to express the same ideas, by the 
different names bestowed. It is important too, 
in making comparisons of the vocabulary of re- 
mote tribes, to know whether the name be gene- 
rally adopted, or there be two or more names 
for the same object. And especially, whether 
words be used with, or without the pronouns, 
and other cumulative adjuncts. Without the 
analysis, and a very complete one of every word 
in the vocabulary, no true advance can be made. 
There are two principles which prevail exten- 
sively in the grammars of the North American 
tribes, or rather of those of Algonquin origin, 
which dwell within the United States, east of 
50 



386 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the Rocky mountains, to which I will for a mo- 
ment advert. And I do so, under an impression 
of their being both novel or indigenous, that is, 
novel to the Asiatic groups, and indigenous here. 

1. The first characteristic rule in the syntax is, 
that every animate verb requires an animate 
substantive, and every inanimate verb an inani- 
mate substantive. This rule, which is unknown 
to the Hebrew, or to any ancient or foreign lan- 
guage we are acquainted with, is of such uni- 
versal and stringent application, in the Algonquin 
family of dialects, that its effect has been almost 
completely to annihilate the grammatical dis- 
tinctions of sex, in words of that stock. There 
are no masculine or feminine genders, and but few 
neuter words in that important class of languages. 
Adjectives, as well as verbs, and nouns, are 
subject to this rule, and indeed the whole list 
of the numerous class of particles which perform 
in these dialects, the offices of prepositions and 
conjunctions, and even exclamations, obey this 
concord. So broad is the rule, and so important 
is its operation deemed, that in some cases en- 
tirely different ground elements are employed 
to express the qualities of objects. 

2. Another leading and characteristic princi- 
ple of the native languages of this continent, so 
far as they have been examined, consists in their 
power of amalgamation. Words are condensed 
and reformed by the introduction of ideographic 
roots, to which pronominal, tensal, and other 
appendages, are prefixed, or subjoined, to de- 



LANGUAGE. 387 

scribe new objects or relations. It has long 
been known that these compound terms are re- 
plete with meaning. And when this meaning 
has been extracted, as in the case of their eu- 
phonious names for our hills and streams, it has 
seemed scarcely possible to our rigid Saxon syn- 
tax, that such full descriptive and expressive 
ideas should be thrown together in a single 
phrase. The principle is analogous to that 
which exists in their ancient system of picture- 
writing. By this system, symbols are chosen 
to represent ideas, or chains of ideas, both sim- 
ple and complex. The figure of a bird, to illus- 
trate the system of picture-writing, is drawn 
both for the name and species of a bird, and the 
act of its flight, or death, is a pure matter of 
inference, as denoted by the contiguity of a 
man, a sky, a tree, or an arrow. Yet the head 
or the claw of a bird may also represent both 
the name and class of the bird. So the sylla- 
bic increment of a compound, represents the 
generic trait of the whole word, and the syllable 
preceding or following it, governs and determines 
its particular meaning, in this new relation. 

In the Indian compounds, or concrete deriva- 
tives, the ideographic syllable or particle to be 
introduced, is taken from the root of the dis- 
junctive noun, or verb. It is invested with the 
whole and entire meaning of the word, as ex- 
pressed when used disjunctively, and not a pact 
of it only. It must be recollected, that by far 
the largest number of the primitives, when 



388 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

trimmed and clipped of their pronominal and 
other adjuncts, are chiefly monosyllables, or dis- 
syllables. In these cases, sometimes the entire 
root is thrown in. It is, however, generally shorn 
of its full proportions. But whether a mono- 
syllable or not, the intrusive particle or syllable 
is subject, in this new position, to the law of 
euphony. A letter may be thrown away for 
this purpose, either from the beginning or end 
of it. Two consonants or vowels coming toge- 
ther, would require one to be dropt. In this pro- 
cess of syllabic curtailment, and the readjust- 
ment and interfusion of new roots, sometimes, 
but a single letter out of the word to be intro- 
duced, is left in the compound; yet that letter 
is an ideographic sign, and represents, and car- 
ries the whole and full meaning of the parent 
word. In this latter case, however, the end or 
the beginning of the word annexed, or the word 
annexed to, supplies the sound thrown away, 
and thus guides the native ear in its nice percep- 
tions of the etymology. Thus to give an exam- 
ple of the rule, the two vowel sounds, io, in the 
Iroquois terms, Ohio and Ontario, which denote 
a water landscape, are from the same radical, 
and bring before the mind the entire land- 
scape of woods and water denoted. They are 
qualified exclusively by the prefixed or appended 
syllables, o, on, oh, and tar. Oh, denotes beauti- 
ful, on hills or mountains, and tar rocks or cliffs, 
as heard in the name of Ontario, which is a AVy- 
andot word, being applied to the first prospect of 



LANGUAGE. 389 

the lake, on the issue from the old portage of 
Cadaracqui. A still farther cause of the ability 
of happy and truthful geographical description, 
possessed by our native languages, is owing'to a 
stock of generic particles, of an adjective charac- 
ter, which are used as separable prefixes and 
suffixes to the substantive. Thus, na denotes 
excellent, ish is derogative, ees diminutive, hg 
local, &c. With a language purely transpositive 
in its rules, and with a magazine of these gene- 
ric particles at his command, the native orator 
is never at a loss to give a turn, a piquancy, or 
beauty to his expressions. While the words 
poured out by an orator, enchain the mere casual 
hearer as an out pouring of well collocated sounds, 
they transport with their ideality, an audience 
of glowing foresters, to whom these felicities 
of thought, and capacities of expression, have 
been familiar from their cradles. 

These traits of the native languages, although 
apparently indigenous, may be developements 
of ancient grammars and vocabularies. Corres- 
pondences may be found, in portions of the globe, 
with whose philology we are as yet but little 
acquainted. Before true comparisons can be 
well made with foreign languages, we should 
have vocabularies of both the foreign and do- 
mestic languages, collected on uniform princi- 
ples, with such notices of their grammars as shall 
tell us, not merely how they conjugate a verb, 
how they denote tenses and number, but what 
provisions there are in the texture of the word 



390 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

itself, for regulating this principle of compounds. 
Do any tribes of the old world view the globe, as 
the Algonquins do, as existing in two grand ani- 
mate and inanimate classes, equivalent to gen- 
ders? Do they compound their words by ideo- 
graphic increments of preexisting roots, or ground 
forms of words, which retain the original mean- 
ing of whole words ? Do they possess, like the 
tribes of the western hemisphere, an original vo- 
cabulary of primitive generic particles, which, 
under the use of free transposition, principles can 
be employed, with almost the facility of men 
on a chess board, to form new /Combinations, 
making new forms, at every e^'-olution of the 
mind, to express meanings the rViost recondite, 
graphic, or admirable ? 

In applying these remarks to the Iroquois lan- 
guage, we may take the Algonquin, of which more 
has been written, as a point for comparison. 
Like this leading language of the north and west, 
the Iroquois abounds in the power of geographi- 
cal description, forming derivative and compound 
terms, as an evidence of which, it may be men- 
tioned, that it has actually covered the ancient 
domain of their residence in western New York, 
with many euphonous names for the streams and 
other features of its topography, which consti- 
tute the most permanent monument to their 
memory. Like it, also, its verbs and nouns re- 
ceive the pronouns as inseparable prefixes or 
suffixes, which become essential parts of the 
words. Like it, also, they are mutually trans- 



LANGUAGE. 391 

ferable into each other, nouns becoming verbs 
and verbs nouns, ad libitum. They are inflected, 
like the Algonquin, 1, for locality; 2, for general 
quality, as size, texture, color, weight, form, 
beauty or deformity ; 3, for a character of par- 
ticular hurtfulness or destructiveness, which may 
be called the derogative inflection; 4, for diminu- 
tion. They have inseparable particles, as we ob- 
serve in the Algonquin dialects, to denote propo- 
sitions, which render the use of both nouns and 
verbs precise ; and the language has a full pro- 
vision to denote number. At this point, it passes 
beyond the Algonquin, in its capacities of 
exact expression, denoting number, not only in 
some cases, in the conjugation of verbs, where 
the other language often fails, but it gives us a 
dual, as well as a general plural. It also gives 
us a masculine, a feminine and a neuter gender, 
and does not fall under the more barbaric and 
certainly anomalous grammatical rule of classes 
of animate and inanimate words, requiring con- 
cords of that character. The Iroquois count, like 
all our known United States or Alleghanic stocks, 
by the decimal system. Their numerals denote 
a stronger degree of analogy between the lan- 
guages of the cantons, reaching to the Tusca- 
rorasand Wyandots, thanany other class of their 
words. The actual diflerences in the Iroquois 
vocabulary of the different cantons, are very con- 
siderable and rather striking. In all, however, 
a law of combination is obeyed, which, giving the 
speaker the general meaning of the primary, or 



392 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

root forms, allows great latitude and indepen- 
dency in bestowing names on things, or rather 
in the choice of traits or qualities in the thing 
to be named ; whence it happens that the seve- 
ral diverse names of the cantons, for the same 
thing or object, are well known and understood 
by each, proving a general and original unity, in 
those very points where philology, guided alone 
by orthoepy and orthography, finds the greatest 
discrepancies. The Iroquois has no labials; it 
rolls from the tongue and glottis, with lips un- 
closed. And although it has some of the deepest 
gutturals, it abounds in long and open vowel 
sounds, along with its liquids and aspirates, 
which fall musically on the ear, and give it a 
manly, and dignified flow. Its nasal vowel 
sounds and dipthongs, as heard so often in the 
Oneida and Onondaga dialects, have a pecu- 
liar softness and melody. 



m 
O 

a 
o 

w 

O 

o 
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LANGUAGE. 



111 III 

p-r, t£^ s > s 






2 3 

E « 

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11^ 



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i - ^E S £ o 



? 3 —Si U 
■^ S 3 U >. 

i o _ = fe a 

I' Hill 



: a 
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c'u ^ 

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1 »,3 



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393 



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X c -E X 5 rt 



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J5 iS E 2 



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S ? ^ "? f ? 



3 3 = 3 = 3 



E-e^hf-HE- 



:= r: 3 :i rj - 2 



SI' 



.2.2 too « ?1 S 
ccou = ::«o 



O bo 

- 3 « a > «5 

^^ ^^ '~''T3>33^^J=M T; 
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>•>>>.*" >-" W W 2 to V o^nipSano 
cc«o--p-=33 = o--s:otcb03^3ti 



3 m 2 a - * 

to 3 = 3 S » J= 

cwccoco 



tci ^ 



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o«^K^ o--x:'= a£3C 5 a C.a 31-3 a o a :>sOC ^ <; .ju ^_g 

51 



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394 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



- 2 


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rt tsaSca^ l„=«-E- §.-S^S -e,« E-«'o SS = « <u 5;.3 « so 
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fco^oj-so=.2^csj;-c>?J5t;^oo-5=.2o(ucj=u«S233o2^-i5 
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■^^X'5.55k2^-?^?? ^-5 '— ""^ =•" " ^ 3 



&i-s2i^>3-|^l? 



tc.3 - = -i: _ 3 - - .„ 



..3J3 
MM 
3 3 
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y'S-BoJ- ^ SS»l=o3C03!:o n!3 nS = i:S> S -^ f „, 

aSo.S2-|.r5S3^rt.-3>.SS5f-goaJ°n3So5^S = 5 332 -^gS 

" 2 S 22 ? 5 •; 7 c- S S f> t ji^ ;c£ i S = 2 S 2 2-S r 2-^ a «=« 95 = ^^ ?„ 
ojsaj— 'J— -'.3.jr-3--K;s;-a,.ni}3.3i?j=.t;323s >,.m ryjjtrt3>^aa-c:- to 
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O -< O 0000 OOOO-^OKOOOOOOOOO iiiiii^b^Diei<xO\ii<>'<'<iii 






o „ >, 



o-3r;<n— a -2^-.= T- = „^ij~»>,3 

S ^ < 2: ^ yj ■< O 



LANGUAGE. 395 



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is 5 a s=:s.- 



V ^ 



it If i § lill^ 5|£ll>.iijllce|2|§l 



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cso-i=sxfo OS 

5 3 j= 2 "oi "u "s - 2 2: 
o:o5cos^c.^ 
003000>'~So 




2'^^l"iiD^s's22^oo52^totf2;^5r,s;s5S5^rJ-j;:r-' 



S 2 «-:3 >-.-^= s» S-5^ " 



=? 3 '^ 



£ = 3 



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Ku -g^ 5«i= to^ fe._Sf.2„-cs3.= „aJS "3 2u-52-5 

a 3 j= s — s .=.-r J2c «30>-,K^a55s.u-/i-c='3o53BJi!=C — — ct(j3cs 




396 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



S. ^ 



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s £. 



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3 — 5 ^' g a 



o 
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S3 
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3 3 = 3^.2::^ ? ■ 



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g; a a oo ax;5;S6!S£oooo5o6a ^ o'l^t^affioc ;^c5 



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LANGUAGE. 397 






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5a) = 5;5= — •-n'= i^ f, - •^■- r. ■:: ^ ^ ^ !. ■- a > ^--^ > aj;C x-^ ^ .-; t -7 a 



398 



HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 











s 
























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= ~ S 3 C— 3 -= ir 3 - •£ ;--C O 



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LANGUAGE. 



399 



«i S5 



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C-— =^i» 5 3 = = ■' « 

v-^r. <>'> ■/j< << < < 



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h < K -<W;i E-^C: >- h < 



ya^^—o^o^"* ^>^ a':r— o a c^ -r: ^ 3^ st: :> c^ 
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S; d 



2 « 2 



a 6o u 

q; « _, t- 

15 ^ s ;^ £ aj i> rt 



^ «-= 



to 

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J) ^ 






400 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



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CHAPTER XII 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION, AND PROS- 
PECTS. 



The gospel was preached to the Iroquois, as 
well as to the several tribes of Algonquin ori- 
gin, who, under various names, lined the banks 
of the Hudson and Delaware rivers, early in 
the seventeenth century. The Reformed church 
of Holland does not appear to have under- 
rated its duties in this respect. While the 
Holland states, under a hereditary president or 
stadtholder, were extending^ their civil jurisdic- 
tion and commercial power on this continent, 
the ecclesiastical courts of Amsterdam took 
cognizance of the incipient religious wants of 
the newly founded colony, "^ and sent out preach- 
ers and catechists, to their settlements, who 
sought the conversion of the Indian tribes. It 
was in this quality that Pyrlaus and Romeyn, 
labored respectively, at different eras, among the 

* Vide Proceedings of the New York Hist. Society for a 
notice of the Rev. Thomas De Witt's visit to the classis of 
Amsterdam, and other ecclesiastical bodies of Holland, 1^46. 
52 



402 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Mohawks and Oneidas. It was eminently the 
policy of the Dutch West India Company, to in- 
troduce the arts dependant on commerce, and 
it is observed, in early records of the times, that 
their servants and agents were alert in pushing 
the fur trade, among the interior tribes, to the 
farthest points, and used their utmost influence 
to convince them of the superior advantages of 
cultivating the arts of peace. And they left the 
teacher and missionary to tread in their tracks, 
as time and circumstances dictated. It was the 
common impression of those times, not only in 
Holland, the centre of theological discussion, 
where Erasmus, Arminius, and Bcemgaerten con- 
tended, but in the reformed churches of the con- 
tinent generally, that civilization and the arts 
must precede the introduction of Christianity 
among barbarous and idolatrous tribes. It was 
under such impressions that the gospel was first 
carried to India and to Iceland, by the pious 
zeal of the early Gerhian reformers, and the same 
theoretical views governed the exertions of the 
New England colonists and divines in this be- 
half Their earliest efforts were directed to wean 
the tribes from the arts of war and the chase, 
and to fix their minds and habits on the maxims 
and practices of an agricultural life, as the basis 
of Christianity. 

A different, a wider, wilder and more sweep- 
ing spirit, arose in Europe, with almost the first 
successful dawnings of the reformation; and 
while Luther thundered against errors in the 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION. 403 

Christian church, maintaining a deeply purposed, 
yet conservative theology, respecting the con- 
version of men, the spirit of enthusiasm burst 
out from the pale of admitted orthodoxy, leading 
to deeper and more searching views of the power 
of truth on the heart, and its capacities to re- 
generate the mind, and to curb and regulate 
human action, even in the wildest and most 
uncivilized conditions of society. The excess 
of this feeling led to fanaticism, and the wildest 
errors of pietism, and the brief rebellion of Mun- 
zer, his death and overthrow, sounded out to the 
church, as a warning voice against the imminent 
danger of zeal, without the sober aid of judgment, 
and the sustaining influences of a peaceful, well 
ordered and fixed state of industrial society. 

The fears and the policy of the Christian or 
Romish church, as organized at this period, say 
A. D, 1500, regarded, or chose to regard, the 
outbreaks and episodes of the reform, and re- 
formation itself, sanctioned and adopted as it 
was by states and synods, as parts of one and 
the same system, and as constituting an indi- 
visible effort by the protestants to overthrow her 
power and hold on the wide-spread masses and 
orders of the European and Christian world. 
Hence the origin of the Jesuit order — an order 
of priesthood excelling all others in its boldness, 
zeal, and indomitable efficacy, in presenting 
and enforcing the claims of that type of the 
church, on the notice of distant and barbarous 
tribes and nations. It is one of the remarkable 



404 HISTORY OF THE mOQUOIS. 

facts of history, that America was discovered at 
the same general period of the origin and first 
establishment of the reformation. And it re- 
sulted, naturally, that when colonies were sent 
out to the new world, the same religious strifes 
and acrimony, which had marked the discussion 
and progress of Christian reform in the Euro- 
pean branches of the church should be trans- 
ferred to the forests of America. It often be- 
came, indeed, to some extent, a contest of no 
little moment between the missionaries of the 
gospel, whether the new found tribes should ac- 
knowledge the Romish or Protestant doctrines; 
and there was sometimes more zeal, apparently, 
shown in an anxiety to secure external conformi- 
ty in matters of belief, and church discipline, 
than the actual opening of the savage mind to 
the simple intellectual truths of revelation, or 
the steady and consistent advance of the tribes 
in order, morals, industry, and the essentials of 
civilization. 

The impulse which had been imparted to the 
subject of the conversion of the natives through 
the zeal and devotion of Xavier and Loyola, and 
the energetic spirit of making proselytes and 
converts, which characterized the particular or- 
der of the church which they founded, impressed 
the rulers of Spain, France and Portugal, with a 
deep sense of the importance of carrying the 
gospel to the aborigines of the countries which 
they discovered. Hence it was put forth and 
really became one of the cardinal points of at- 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION. 405 

tention in their early attempts to found new 
colonies. And while the governors and servants 
of these countries did not prosecute the objects 
of trade and politics with less determination and 
success, nay, with a more unscrupulous disre- 
gard of the means, as the history of South Ame- 
rica alone testifies, they carried missionaries in 
every early enterprise, and set forth to the world 
the conversion of the native inhabitants as the 
great object of their aim, as it was indeed often 
the shield and cover to the reckless avarice and 
ambition of the Cortezes and the Pizarros who 
carried their flags. 

It was not consonant to the genius of Christi- 
anity, as interpreted by the reformed churches, to 
proceed in the work of spiritual conquest with 
so noisy and gorgeous a display, or with arm 
locked in arm with the state ; and if the states 
of Holland did not put forth the object, in their 
first charters and commissions to the new world, 
it was, perhaps, because the church was actu- 
ated in, and was guided by, the general policy 
of the protestant European churches. England 
and Sweden, who planted colonies here, did the 
same. 

It was not, indeed, until the new impulse 
which arose in the middle of the seventeenth 
century, and which brought Oliver Cromwell to 
the English throne, that different views and a 
deeper obligation of national duties in this re- 
spect began to prevail. And hence, when the 
English pilgrims, who had been sheltered awhile 



406 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

in the tolerant domains of Holland, set their 
faces towards the new world, it was with a 
predetermination not only to carry out the prin- 
ciples of the gospel, in their own settlements, 
but to extend its benign influences among the 
aborigines. This was averred, and the well 
known prominency of the fact stamps their ef- 
forts to convert and civilize the North American 
Indians, with a moral force and grandeur, which 
cannot be claimed for England, in her royal ca- 
pacity as administrator of patents and honors 
here, or for any other protestant king or poten- 
tate, who sent her bold or enterprising children 
to the American wilds. 

This much can be said, without disparagement 
to the piety of the Netherland church, which 
had her pastors and teachers at Manhattan, Fort 
Orange, and various other incipient points of 
her settlements at an early day. Whatever had 
been her policy, (and we have paid but little 
attention to this,) in sending teachers among the 
Mohegans, the Maquaas, and other tribes, who 
resorted to her forts and factories at Albany, and 
other points of early contact with these simple 
and warlike men ; the English, after the con- 
quest of 1664, appear to have followed in her 
footsteps, and pursued the same general, gradual 
and persuasive means, attaching high and de- 
served value at all points to the influence of 
European arts and the value of fixed industry. 

Churches were founded at an early day, among 
the Mohawks at Caughnawaga, and at Dionde- 



I 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION. 407 

roga, at the mouth of Schoharie creek, better 
known as Fort Hunter, the latter of which re- 
ceived a present of a set of plate for the com- 
munion service, from Queen Anne. 

Unfortunately for the conversion and civiliza- 
tion of the Indians, they had not a fixed popula- 
tion — they drew their supplies mainly from the 
chase, gave up a large portion of their time and 
m^eans to war, and besides moving periodically, 
at least twice a year, from or io their hunting and 
planting grounds, they were in a general progress 
of recession before a civilized population. They 
shrank before the determined spirit of progress 
of the civilized arts and industry, which elicited 
resources where the Indian had seen none, and 
made an industrious use of every acre of tillable 
ground. But while the silent influence of this 
progress did much to teach him, by denoting the 
use of tools and implements of art and agricul- 
ture, to improve him in his domicil and its fix- 
tures, and in his costume, and to harmonize and 
fix his mental habits and character, he was not 
proof against the leading temptation of the times, 
namely, the free and inordinate use of ardent 
spirits. From the partial paroxysms of this per- 
nicious indulgence, he rose with less energy to 
pursue the chase, or follow the war path. The 
policy of land sales, the acceptance of presents 
as boons from the crown, and the distribution of 
small sums of coin to the heads of families in the 
shape of annuities — a system founded, in all but 
the last feature, under James VI, and confirmed 



408 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

under the old confederation, stepped in, as it 
were, to aid and reinforce him in his means of 
living-, but which in effect held him away from 
his hunting grounds, paralyzed his home indus- 
try, and supplied him new means of indulging 
his propensities for liquor and luxuries. That 
the gospel should not have made a very marked 
progress under these circumstances, is not sur- 
prising. 

Some years before the breaking- out of the 
American revolution, Mr. Kirkland planted the 
gospel standard among the Oneidas, at a time 
when the broad and sylvan fields and glades of 
Kun-a-wa-loa, or Oneida Castle, were still beyond 
the pale of European civilization.^ And he may 
be regarded as the apostle to the Iroquois. For 
many years, in perils and dangers, he preached 
the gospel to the Oneidas, at their once celebrated 
castle ; and by the purity, firmness, and excel- 
lence of his character, won the confidence and 
the heart of their leading sachem. Skenandoah 
gave his attention to this new scheme of accept- 
ance with his Maker, admitted it, and became a 
consistent professor and practiser of its precepts; 
and of him, it can be confidently said, that he 
lived and died in the faith. To gain the influ- 
ence of the most powerful man in the canton, 
was to gain the whole canton; and when the 
war broke out, the tribe, wavering, as it did for 
a time, and assailed with all the arts of British 

* Herkimer, the nearest point east, was about forty miles 
distant. 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION. 409 

intrigue and promise, so profusely put forth, ad- 
hered to the colonies. Kirkland, in the incep- 
tion and progress of these movements, became 
the principal agent in disseminating the doctrines 
of peace and neutrality among the six cantons. 
Washington and the continental congress reposed 
the highest trust in his virtue, judgment, and in- 
telligence. He took from the lips of the father 
of his country, words of peace and good counsel, 
which coincided admirably with the precepts of 
the gospel. He traversed the then wilderness of 
Genesee and Niagara on this mission, and has 
left enduring monuments of his faithfulness and 
zeal. 

But the spirit of war prevailed — that spirit 
which the great body of this people had so long 
served, under the guidance of their native priest- 
hood. All but the Oneidas, some few of the Tus- 
caroras, who were then settled in their western 
precincts, and some one or two individuals from 
St. Regis, joined the ranks of the mother country, 
under their bold and politic leader, Brant. Seven 
years of battles, expeditions, ambushes, and 
murders, terminated not only in their political 
overthrow as a confederacy, but plunged many 
of them who had before listened to the voice of 
Christianity, back into the arms of their native 
priests and forest habits. The Mohawks, part 
of the Cayugas, and some Onondagas and Tus- 
caroras, fled the country, and settled chiefly in 
Canada. The Oneidas, the body of the Onon- 
dagas and Senecas, and some parts of the Cayu- 
53 



410 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

gas and Tuscaroras, remained. But they had 
fought for a phantom. All the rich promises of 
glory and conquest, emanating from Johnson 
Hall and Fort Niagara, and the Canadas, had 
failed; and their delegates came to the treaty 
of Fort Stanwix in 1784, poor, crest fallen, and 
defeated ; and by their first public act, after the 
drama of the revolution, they put their hands to 
a treaty, ceding away the larger portion of their 
ancient domain. Thus they were thrown back 
an immeasurable distance in the work of civi- 
lization and Christianity, and the effort to intro- 
duce the gospel was to be commenced almost 
anew. 

Time will not permit any notice in detail, of 
this second period in their history. Kirkland, 
true to his original purpose, continued his min- 
istry and useful labors, and died in the Oneida 
country. The venerable Skenandoah followed 
him at some few years later, and requested to 
be buried by his side. New missions were pro- 
jected and carried into eflect, at distinct times 
among the remaining cantons. A review of 
these, it is impossible to make within the space 
allotted to this work. Letters from the Rev. 
Gilbert Rockwood and Rev. James Cusick of 
Tuscarora; from the Rev. Asher Bliss at Catta- 
raugus, and from Rev. William Hall at Allegha- 
ny, will be found in the appendix, and are 
referred to as giving the latest and most au- 
thentic information on the progress of Christ- 
ianity, letters, and morals among these respective 



MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION. 411 

tribes. So far as relates to their progress in ag- 
riculture and the arts, the results of the census, 
hereto prefixed, although they denote striking 
depopulation, afford the most definite, and at 
the same time, most favorable view of the re- 
mains of these cantons,'which has, perhaps, ever 
been presented, of a whole Indian nation in 
America. The reluctance, whicli was felt in 
some quarters, in imparting statistics, has ren- 
dered it less complete than it might have been 
made. Still, with every proper abatemenf and 
qualification, applicable to the reservations as 
departmental bodies, and to the whole as a mass, 
there are strong encouragements to the friends 
of Christianity to persevere. The seeds of indus- 
try are well sown ; letters have been generally 
introduced, and, in some instances, they have 
produced men of talents and intelligence, who 
have taken an honorable part in the professional 
and practical duties of life. Very gratifying evi- 
dences exist of the adoption, on a large scale, of 
the improved arts and conveniences of polished 
life. In manners, costume and address, the Iro- 
quois people offer a high example of the capaci- 
ties and ready adoptive habits of the race. It 
only needs a reference to the statistical tables 
mentioned, to show that they are not behind 
hand in implements of husbandry, vehicles, work 
cattle, horses, and the general features of their 
agriculture. They are abundantly able to raise 
sufficient for their own consumption, and some 
of the communities have a surplus which is added 



412 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

to the productive resources of the state. From 
those who have done so well, and who have shown 
such unequivocal capacities for improvement, 
we may expect more. From the tree, which has 
produced blossoms, we may expect fruit; and 
from the bearing tree which has produced grafts, 
we may expect an abundant harvest. Under all 
circumstances, we may regard the problem of 
their reclamation as fixed and certain. They 
have themselves solved it. And whatever an 
enlightened people and legislature should do to 
favor them, ought not to be omitted. Churches 
and societies who have granted their peculiar 
aids, should continue those aids ; and the heart 
of the philanthropist and the statesman has cause 
to rejoice, that after all their wars and wander- 
ings, mistakes and besetments, the Iroquois, 
made wise by experience, are destined to live. 
The results of the census, herewith submitted, 
demonstrate this. The time is indeed propitious 
for putting the inquiry, whether the Iroquois are 
not worthy to be received, under the new con- 
stitution, as citizens of the state.* 

* This question was debated in the convention for revising; 
the constitution of New York, which assembled at Albany, 
in May, 1846, but the provision to this effect, recommended 
and adopted by the committee, was decided in the negative 
by the convention. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 



SolENGARAHTA, OR KlNG HenDRICK InFANT AtoTARHO OF THE 

Onondagas — Red Jacket and the Wyandot Claim to Su- 
premacy — Pocahontas — Anecdote of Brant — Univer- 
sal Suffrage, the Iroquois Considered — County Clerk 
AND THE Wolf Scalp — Family of the Thunderers. 

SOI-EN-GA-RAH-TA. 
Such was the name, in his own dialect, ac- 
cording- to the researches of Mr. Yates, of the 
celebrated sachem, usually called King Hen- 
drick, who during the middle of the eighteenth 
century, stood at the head of the proud Mohawk 
canton. A chief who, at the head of two hun- 
dred picked Iroquois, by his name and valor, on 
the day of Count Dieskau's defeat, gave his 
powerful influence, at a single blow, to exalt to 
honor one of the greatest friends to America in 
Gen. William Johnson ; and at the same time, to 
humble her constant and most strenuous enemy, 
the French of Canada. It was a crisis which 
turned the scale in favor of the colonists, after a 
long and severe struggle for political supremacy, 



414 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

and paved the way for the heavier, and final 
defeat, which but four years afterwards, marked 
the total downfall of the French power, under 
Montcalm at Quebec. 

We should not, in our reminiscences of the 
past, and our felicitations of the present, forget 
the stalwart warriors who raised their weapons 
faithfully for the colonies; nor feel averse to 
giving our tribute of applause to the manly race 
of brave men and orators, who figure conspicu- 
ously alike in their and our history. 

The great Mohawk sachem, Soi-en-ga-rah-ta, 
lived through the entire reigns of Queen Anne 
and George I, and nearly to the close of George 
II. He was therefore a cotemporary with Pope 
and Addison, as well as with the heroic Duke 
of Marlborough, with some of whose veteran 
regiments, after their triumphs on the continent, 
he fought against the French on the frontiers of 
New York; at first, as a youthful scout, and 
afterwards as an approved war captain. There 
was a time, in our settlements, when there was 
a moral force in the name of King Hendrick and 
his Mohawks, which had an electric efifect; and 
at the time he died, his loss was widely and 
deeply felt and lamented, even in Great Britain. 
And were the time and occasion pertinent, it is 
believed that a search of the colonial records, 
and of cotemporary papers, respecting him, would 
well reward the pen of his biographer. 

" A Mohawk he, by Tiondoga stood, 

And fell, the mighty monarch of the wood." 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS. ETC. 415 

Mr. Giles F. Yates, to whose manuscripts and 
gleanings of the "olden times in the Mohawk 
valley," we are indebted for the following de- 
tails, traces him to the reign of William III. 
" The precise time," he observes, "of Hendrick's 
birth, cannot be ascertained, but several circum- 
stances conspire to induce the belief that it took 
place sometime between the years 1680 and 
1690. If he was in London at the time Addison 
wrote his account of the Mohocks, 1713 I think, 
then Hendrick may have been nearly seventy 
years old when he was slain in battle, 1755. 
He was then and before called old King Hendrick. 
The aboriginal name of this celebrated chieftain 
has never, to my knowledge, been known, since 
the days he flourished, and in all contemporane- 
ous notices of him, he was always called by his 
English name Hendrick. It is therefore the duty 
of his biographer to give his authority for the 
name he may use as the true original one. My 
authority is the release to King George II, of 
which the reader will find a notice in the sequel. 

" It is said that he, on two occasions, visited 
his British sovereign. On one of these occasions, 
doubtless the last, which is conjectured to 
have been about the year 1740, his majesty pre- 
sented him a rich suit of clothes — a green coat, 
set off with brussels and gold lace, and a cocked 
hat, such as was worn by the court gentry of 
that period. In these, he sat for his portrait, 
which was executed by a London artist. From 
this portrait, which has no date, engravings were 



416 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

made, of a large 'cabinet size,' and colored in 
conformity with the original. I saw one of these 
engravings in the family of a relative at Sche- 
nectady, which has, however, been long since 
destroyed by fire ; and recently I have seen an- 
other, which had been for nearly a century, pre- 
served in the family of the late Jeremiah Lan- 
sing, Esq., of Albany. The prosopological in- 
dicia of his countenance, denote a kind disposi- 
tion, honesty of purpose, and an order of intel- 
lect, much above mediocrity. Although his 
complexion was 'the shadowed livery of the 
burnished sun,' his figure and countenance were 
singularly prepossessing and commanding. The 
concurrent testimony of every traditionist, awards 
to him great natural talents, judgment, and sa- 
gacity. As a diplomatist and orator, he was 
greatly distinguished, and divided the palm only 
with his brother Abraham, of pious memory, 
who was exclusively devoted to civil pursuits. 

" In the early part of his life, he lived at the 
upper castle of the Mohawks, Canajoharie; but 
afterwards his residence was, for the most part, 
on the north side of the Mohawk, and a little 
below the residence of Major Jellis Fonda, near a 
place then and now called the Nose. 

" licndrick's greatest speech was delivered on 
the 2d July, 1754, 'in the name and behalf of 
the Six Nations' in answer to a speech made by 
the lieutenant-governor of New York, ' in the 
name of the king of Great Britain, and in the 
name and behalf of the American colonies,' 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 417 

which were all represented on the occasion. 
This speech, with several others, is reported at 
fall length in the London Gentleman's Maga- 
zine, the editor whereof speaks of these speeches 
in the following terms. " They contain strains 
of eloquence which might have done honor to 
Tnlly or Demosthenes." The speeches of Hend- 
rick and his brother Abraham, made the same 
day above named, in the name and behalf of 
the Mohawks of the upper castle (Canajoharie) 
to the governor of New York, attended by seve- 
ral sachems of the other (Six) nations, were also 
evincive of much talent and eloquence. 

The journalists of the day paid our chief the 
following high compliment, which I have every 
reason to believe was not undeserved or exag- 
gerated praise. " For capacity, bravery and 
vigor of mind, and immovable integrity united, 
he excelled all the aboriginal inhabitants of 
whom we have any knowledge." 

Soiengarahta is the identical chief who grant- 
ed to Gen. (afterwards Sir Wm.) Johnson, " the 
dream land," as it was significantly called. At 
an entertainment given by the general, which 
lasted several days, our chief was one of the 
guests. Johnson had recently received from his 
royal master, several military dresses, resplend- 
ent with scarlet and gold, which were tempting- 
ly displayed in the view of the guests. One 
morning, before the close of the entertainment, 
Hendrick told his pale-faced friend and patron, 
that he had had a dream the night previous. 
54 



418 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

"Indeed," said the general, "and what did my 
red brother dream?" " I dreamt" replied the 
chief, " that you presented me with one of those 
dresses," pointing to them. " You shall have it," 
was the prompt response, and in a few moments 
the person of the majestic chief was ensconced 
in the splendid uniform he had coveted. It is 
necessary, in this connection, to observe, that 
one of the prevailing superstitions of the Iro- 
quois, was an implicit faith in dreams, which, 
they said, were sent by the Great Spirit for wise 
purposes, and that if a dream is not fulfilled, at 
whatever hazard or sacrifice, some evil may fall 
upon the dreamer. At a subsequent entertain- 
ment, given by Gen. Johnson, Hendrick was in- 
vited as before. On this occasion it was the 
general's turn to dream, and he dreamt, or pre- 
tended to Hendrick to have dreamt, that the Iro- 
quois chief had made him a present of three 
thousand acres of land, describing its locality. 
The chief replied, " You shall have it, but I will 
never dream with you again. Your dreams are 
too hard for me." The conveyance of this tract 
of land, afterwards received the royal sanction 
or confirmation, and is, at the present day, 
known as " the Royal Grant." 

I have been induced particularly to describe 
the parties in whose behalf, and to whom our 
hero spoke, and also to relate the foregoing anec- 
dote, as affording evidence of the high official 
standing, power and influence he held among his 
people. He was their great embassador and 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 419 

minister plenipotentiary, while at the same time, 
he was the great war chief of the Iroquois, as 
will presently appear. It is not, however, to be 
inferred, that he had power in his own right, 
and without the assent of his own nation, in 
council assembled, to convey the 3000 acres re- 
ferred to. The Mohawk nation, like a sovereign 
state in our own republic, had the right to dis- 
pose of their own territory, without the assent of 
the grand assembly of the whole confederacy of 
the Iroquois, whose council fires were lighted 
annually in the valley of the Onondaga. 

In a release dated 18th November, 1753, which 
I find recorded in the oflice of the secretary of 
state of this state, conveying a tract of land 
(" 20 miles above Schenectady, purchased by 
Dow Fonda and others") to King George II, 
twelve chiefs are named as "the sole proprietors 
of the Mohocks*country." Of these, the only 
names, given in the Iroquois tongue, are Soien- 
garahta, Kanadagoies (Destroyer of Towns), and 
Kaheoana (Great Turtle.) 

Hendrick was, in his day, esteemed the bravest 
of the brave, among the Iroquois. His spirit, 
energy, and martial prowess, were the subjects 
of much laudation. He was the leader in be- 
half of the British, in several expeditions of 
parties of his red warriors against the Canadian 
French and their tawny associates ; for he and 
his people were ever the fast friends and uncom- 
promising allies of the British on this important 
frontier. The last and principal of these expe- 



420 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ditions was to Lake George, in wliich onr hero 
fell mortally wounded at the memorable battle 
of September 8, 1755. According to the official 
despatch of the commander in chief of the Brit- 
ish forces (Gen. Johnson), these forces consisted 
of 1000 whites, and 200 Iroquois under the 
command of their great captain, Hendrick. The 
French troops, under Baron Dieskau, were com- 
posed of 200 grenadiers, bOO Canadians, and 700 
Indians. The French general was taken pri- 
soner, and 900 of his soldiers killed, while on 
the side of the British only 120 were killed and 
SO wounded. Of the Iroquois 38 were killed 
and 12 wounded. Gen. Johnson, in his report, 
gives Hendrick and his warriors great praise. He 
says, " they fought like lions." Hendrick was 
seen leading his warriors in the thickest of the 
fight, " to glory or the grave." Gen. Johnson, 
in reward of his merit on this occasion, was 
created a baronet, and parliament voted him a 
present of <£5000. 

From the New York Mercury, under date of 
September 22, 1755, I glean the following addi- 
tional particulars. The whole body of the Iro- 
quois in alliance with the English were greatly 
exasperated against the French and their In- 
dians, more particularly on account of the death 
of " the famous Hendrick, a renowned warrior 
among the Mohocks, and one of their sachems, 
or kings. His son, on being told that his father 
was killed, gave the usual groan on such occa- 
sions, and suddenly putting his hand on his left 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 421 

breast, swore that his father was still alive in 
that place, and stood there in his son. It was 
with the utmost difficulty Gen. Johnson pre- 
vented the fury of their resentment taking place 
on the body of the French general, Dieskau, 
whom they would have sacrificed without cere- 
mony, but for the interference of Gen. Johnson." 

INFANT ATOTARHO OF THE ONONDAGAS. 
While I was engaged in taking the census of 
the Onondagas, at their council house, at the 
castle, where a large number of all ages and 
both sexes were assembled, the interpreter, who 
spoke English very well, taking adv^antage of a 
pause in the business, said to me, pointing to a 
fine boy who sat on a bench, near a window, 
" that is our king!" I had, a short time before, 
requested that this boy should be sent for His 
mother had now, unperceived by me, brought 
him, dressed out in his best clothes, and evinced 
by the expression of her eyes and bearing a con- 
scious pride in bringing him to my notice. And 
truly, she had every reason to be proud of so 
finely formed, bright and well-looking a boy. In 
addition to these advantages, it is to be remem- 
bered that descent, amongst the Onondagas and 
the other Iroquois, is counted by the female, 
which constituted a further motive of satisfaction 
and pride to the mother, in showing her pretty 
hux-sa-ha, or boy. She made no remark, however, 
on my noticing him, but sat with modesty and 
ease near him, but with an eye beaming with too 



422 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

much pride and self-complacence to be con- 
cealed. 

The lad was but three years old, but tall for 
that age, and offered a fine model of form. I 
could not help noticing, what had often im- 
pressed me in similar instances, that the infu- 
sion of European blood, derived from his grand- 
father by the father's side, had served to heighten 
and improve physical development, and fullness 
and beauty of muscle. His eyes were full, large, 
black and sparkling. His dark hair also was 
a true trait of his race. His countenance was 
of a bright brown, showing the blood, and rather 
formed on the Grecian mould, with a good nose 
and pretty lips. Yet, over all, there was a phy- 
siological dash of the muscular expression, hue 
and air of the true Konoshioni. 

There was nothing peculiar in his dress, which 
was of good materials and well made, agreeably 
to the nation's fashion for boys, except it might 
be the lining of the under brim of a light straw 
hat, which the mother had carefully decorated 
with a piece of light figured cotton goods, look- 
ing as if it had been cut from a printed hand- 
kerchief 

I did not think to ask the name of this pro- 
mising young candidate for the seat and honors 
of the Atotarho, or chief magistracy of his na- 
tion. His father's name is Tso-ha-neeh-sa, which, 
according to the curious principles of naming 
persons, and the still more curious rules of the 
Indian syntax, means a road, the receding pa- 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 423 

rallel lines of which intermingle by atmospheric 
refraction. This, apparently to them, mysteri- 
ous uniting and separating of the lines in such a 
vista, is the idea described by this compound 
term. The boy, however, inherits, or has the 
right of inheritance of the Atotarho, not " a 
king," through the mother, who was a daughter 
of the principal ho-ai-ne, or chief This daugh- 
ter was married to Ephraim Webster, an Ameri- 
can, a New Englander, a Vermonter, I think, 
who either by freak, taste or fortune, wandered 
off among the Iroquois soon after the close of 
the American revolution, and finally fixed him- 
self in the Onondaga valley, where he learned 
the language, established a trade in the gin-seng 
root, and became a man of note and influence '• 
in the tribe. He died in old age, and is buried 
in this valley, where he has left sons and daugh- 
ters, all of whom, however, are recognized as 
members of the ancient Onondaga canton, or 
People of the Hills. 

RED JACKET AND THE WYANDOT CLAIM TO 
SUPREMACY. 

At a great council of the western tribes, as- 
sembled near Detroit, prior to the late war, the 
celebrated Seneca orator. Red Jacket, was pre- 
sent, when the question of the right of the Wy- 
andots to light the council fire, was brought up. 
This claim he strenuously resisted, and admin- 
istered a rebuke to this nation in the following 
terms : 



*f 



r 



424 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

" Have the Quatoghies forgotten themselves ? 
Or do they suppose we have forgotten them? 
Who gave you the right in the west or east, to 
hght the general council fire? You must have 
fallen asleep, and dreamt that the Six Nations 
were dead ! Who permitted you to escape from 
the lower country? Had you any heart left to 
speak a word for yourselves ? Remember how 
you hung on by the bushes. You had not even 
a place to land on. You have not yet done 

p g for fear of the Konoshioni. High claim, 

indeed, for a tribe who had to run away from the 
Kadarakwa."^ 

"As for you, my nephews," he continued, 
turning to the Lenapees, or Delawares, " it is fit 
you should let another light your fire. Before 
Miqiion came, we had put out your fire and 
poured water on it ; it would not burn. Could 
you hunt or plant without our leave ? Could you 
sell a foot of land ? Did not the voice of the 
Long House cry, go, and you went ? Had you 
any power at all ? Fit act indeed for you to give 
in to our wandering brothers — you, from whom 
we took the war-club and put on petticoats.f " 

* Hon. Albert H. Tracy. 

t For similar language to this, addressed to the Delawares, 
see Colden's Five Nations, for a speech of an Iroquois chief, 
in council, at Lancaster. 




Saiony .fc Major LiHi 



in fi.lto,, StVfwYorh:. 



PD -CA-HON -TAS 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 425 



POCAHONTAS. 

It appears from a letter written by Richard 
Randolph Esq., of Virginia, dated April 1, 1842, 
that Pocahontas and her husband, Mr. Rolfe, 
arrived at Plymouth on the 12th of June, 1616. 
Whilst in England, where their son Thomas 
was born, their portraits were taken at the re- 
quest of Mr. Rolfe's relatives. In the act of 
returning to America, when they had reached 
Gravesend, on the Thames, Pocahontas was 
seized with the small-pox, and died at that 
place, early in the year 1617, being then, ac- 
cording to the best accounts, in her twentieth 
year. 

Her husband continued his voyage, and re- 
turned to Virginia, after having left her son 
Thomas with his brother, Mr. Henry Rolfe, to 
be brought up and educated. When Thomas 
Rolfe junior had completed his education, he 
also went to Virginia, where he married, and had 
a daughter named Jane. Jane Rolfe, the grand- 
daughter of Pocahontas married Col. Thomas 
Boiling, by whom she had a son named John. 
John Boiling, the great-grand-son of Pocahontas, 
marrying, had a daughter, bearing his mother's 
name, Jane, who married Richard Randolph of 
Curies, Henrico county, Virginia. Ryland Ran- 
dolph, a son by this marriage, being the fourth 
remove in a direct line from Pocahontas, was 
educated in England, and having learned after 
his return that portraits of Pocahontas and of 
55 



426 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Mr. Rolfe existed in England, wrote for them, 
and offered to purchase them. But when the 
kinsman of Mr. Rolfe in Warwickshire, k^arncd 
that Mr. Randolph was a descendant of Poca- 
hontas, he presented both the portraits to him, 
through Mr. Randolph's correspondent, who 
sent them out to Virginia, Avhere they were re- 
ceived by Mr. Ryland Randolph, and hung up 
in his mansion on Turkey island. Mr. Ryland 
Randolph died in 1784, and on closing the es- 
tate, the portraits were publicly sold, after a 
valuation of them had been made. There were 
four bidders, but it was agreed that they should 
be bid off by Mr. Thomas Boiling, of Cobbs, in 
the county of Chesterfield, Virginia, a lineal 
descendant of Jane Rolfe. 

This is the history of the portrait. David Mead 
Randolph Esq., father of the writer of the letter 
here quoted, was the executor of the estate of 
Ryland Randolph, and in this capacity sold the 
pictures, as mentioned, and filed an inventory 
of the sales, along with other property, in the 
office of the county court of Henrico, where it is 
open to examination. 

The engraving presented of Pocahontas, is re- 
duced from a copy of the original, in the posses- 
sion of Mr. Boiling, which was painted by Mr. 
R. M. Sully, prior to 1830; testimonials are 
given in the Philadelphia Indian Portrait Gal- 
lery,* of the fiiithfulness of the copy which ap- 

* The History of the Indian Tribes, &c. &c. Rice & Clark, 
Philad. 1844. Vol.3, No. 20. 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 427 

pears in that work, and of the costume in which 
Pocahontas appears: which are entirely satis- 
factory, and leave no doubt that we possess, in 
these lineaments, the sweet and merciful traits, 
which prompted the noble daughter of Powhat- 
tan, at the impulsive age of ten, to save the life 
of the virtual founder of Virginia. 

ANECDOTE OF BRANT. 
When this chief was in London, he received 
ten pounds sterling, to be given on his return to 
America, to any person or persons, among his 
people, whom he found to be doing most to help 
themselves. On coming to the Seneca reserva- 
tion on Buffalo creek, they had just finished the 
church, at an expense of seventeen hundred dol- 
lars. He gave the money to these Indians to 
buy stoves to warm it, which are still used for 
this purpose. He said he had seen no people 
who were doing so much to help themselves. 

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE — THE mOQUOIS CON- 
SIDERED. 

In reconstructing our constitution, under cir- 
cumstances favorable to the rights of all classes 
of a varied population, the occasion is presented 
for asking the question, whether justice to the Iro- 
quois of New York, does not demand that they also 
should be admitted to the rights of citizenship ? 
This people have some strong claims to such a 
distinction. They were not only the owjiers of 
the soil, at the era of the founding of the colony 



42S HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

early in the seventeenth century, but they de- 
fended it manfully during the whole of that, and 
the greater part of the succeeding century, against 
the eflbrts of the crown of France to colonize 
and wrest it from our grasp. A portion of them 
fought with us in the contest for independence. 
The Mohawks, who took adverse grounds, fled 
and took shelter at its close in Canada. Such 
of the tribes and parts of tribes as remain, have 
devoted themselves to agriculture, and continue, 
to the present time, to show themselves as 
peaceable and orderly inhabitants. As such 
they are regarded in the western and northern 
counties, jvhere they are very well liked. 

The recent census exhibits them in a flivora- 
ble light. This is the view in which they are 
presented in the governor's message to the 
legislature. They cultivate wheat, oats and 
corn. They raise cattle, horses, hogs and sheep. 
They are, generally, good farmers and herdsmen. 
There are some mechanics and a few professional 
men. All the 'cantons have made respectable 
advances in morals and education. Their social 
organization exhibits schools, churches and tem- 
perance societies. They have gone through the 
severe and scathing ordeal of the settlement of 
the state ; and it is believed that such as remain 
upon these reservations, could now be incorpo- 
rated into our system, as separate towns, left to 
their own organization, to the great benefit of 
themselves, and without detriment to us. To 
give them the right of suffi'age and arepresenta- 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC, 429 

tion. in our legislature, would act as a seal to all 
prior means to exalt them, and would accom- 
plish more, in this respect, than a house full of 
legislative acts without it. 

THE COUNTY CLERK AND THE WOLF-SCALP. 
A Seneca hunter killed a wolf just within the 
bounds of Cattaraugus county, close to the Penn- 
sylvania line, and took the scalp to Meadville, 
Pennsylvania, for the bounty. Being qucvstioned 
where the animal was killed, he honestly told 
the officer that he had come across it and shot 
it, as near as he could tell, Avithin the territo- 
ry of New York, very near the state and coun- 
ty lines. On this, the clerk told him that it 
would be contrary to law to pay him the bounty. 
"That is a had law!" replied the red man. 
"Why?" said the magistrate ; "we cannot pay 
for scalps taken out of the county." " It is bad," 
replied the hunter, " because you require that 
the wolf should know the county lines. Had 
this wolf seen a flock of sheep just within the 
Pennsylvania lines, I dare say he would not have 
stopped for the county lines." On this, the ma- 
gistrate paid him the bounty of five dollars. 

THE FAMILY OF THE THUNDERERS. 

Iroquois tradition affirms that a great family 

of the Thunderers lived under Niagara falls. 

According to the Senecas, (who have from the 

days of the lost Eries inhabited the country 



430 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

around the cataract,) the residence of this family 
of Thunderers was discovered in this manner. 
When this tribe lived on the Gue-yo-gwa creek, 
(a stream which empties into the Niagara river 
above the falls, and between the brink of water, 
and the inlet of the Tonawanda,) there happened 
a time of great mortality and famine among the 
people, their corn-fields dwindled away, as if a 
spell had been cast over -them, and there was a 
most signal mortality. Men were buried daily, 
and while their numbers grew thinner and thin- 
ner, their grave-yards grew larger and larger. 
There was a young married couple living there 
at this time, who felt the strongest attachment 
to each other. The woman was very handsome, 
and the man an expert hunter. One day he de- 
termined to go on a hunting excursion, and to 
take his wife with him far inland, where they 
might be safe from all danger. Accordingly they 
went, and built a lodge in the woods, where 
game was abundant, and they lived in perfect 
harmony, and felt that all their wishes were re- 
alized. Every day he went into remote parts of 
the forest and killed game, while she remained 
to take care of the lodge. Once when he re- 
turned from the chase he found his wife asleep, 
and he saw that a rattle-snake had crawled into 
her womb ; he woke her up, and proposed that 
they should return to their former home; he 
told her nothing of what he had seen. When 
they got back to the village he divided with her 
the game, and told her to go home to her mo- 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 431 

ther's lodge, as he did not wish to have any thing 
more to do with her. She did not know the 
cause of such cruel conduct, but being compelled, 
she was forced to obey. Nothing that either her 
father or mother could do, would induce him to 
tell the secret of his sudden dislike in sending 
her away. There was a final separation between 
them, and not long after she married again, but 
her husband died immediately, being bit by the 
rattle-snake. Again and again she married, and 
again and again her husbands died, from the 
same cause. The rapid deaths of her husbands 
soon began to create much suspicion and village 
talk ; her first husband therefore exposed the se- 
cret of her condition, and assigned that singular 
misfortune as the only reason of his sending her 
away. She was fair to look on, he said, but to 
touch her, was to touch the poisoned tooth of the 
serpent. The discovery overwhelmed her with 
horror, and finally she got into a state of mind 
bordering on despair. She was young, and very 
handsome, and the admiration of all who saw 
her, but she loathed herself, and after great con- 
flicts and lamentations, determined to put an 
end to her existence. She dressed herself in her 
gayest attire, and taking her light painted cedar 
paddle in her hand, she stepped into her bark 
canoe, and pushed it out into the stream. The 
roar of Niagara was in her ears, but no one saw 
her leave the shore, on her voyage of death, until 
she was far down the river; gliding into the 
tumult of the stream, she seemed resigned and 



432 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

determined to end her life by plunging down the 
falls. The boat was seen to descend the roaring 
rapids and the precipice, and of course all her 
friends gave her up as lost ; but one of the before 
mentioned Thunderers spread a blanket and 
caught her as she swooned away. When she 
opened her eyes, she saw a man reclining over 
her, and he held her in his arms. He took her 
into a room, and there sat the old Thunderer, 
who gave her a very kind salutation. He gave 
her some medicine, which healed her complaint, 
and then told her that it had been m accordance 
with his will and purpose that the rattle-snake 
should enter her womb, in order that he might 
be able to secure her in his family for a season. 
He then gave her in marriage to him who 
had spread out the blanket and saved her life. 
She remained there one year, when the old 
Thunderer told her she must now return to her 
home, and tell her people that a great snake 
poisoned their water once a year, and that there 
was a giant, named Famine, who lived under 
ground, and ate up all their corn-fields, which 
caused so much mortality and starvation among 
the people. He advised them to remove in or- 
der to give the Thunderers an opportunity to 
destroy these enemies of man. She returned 
home, and in compliance with the instructions 
she brought, the Senecas removed to Butialo 
creek. Within ten days the Thunderers had 
killed Famine, and in one year they killed the 
great snake on Buffalo creek. In a certain sea- 



MISCELLANEOUS TRAITS, ETC. 433 

son of the year he poisoned their waters, and 
then crawled into their grave-yards and ate up 
their dead bodies. But now he found none, 
and coming out of the ground to learn the 
cause, he found that the settlement had been 
abandoned. He then tracked them, and found 
that they had gone up the river. He followed 
them, and was not attacked until he had reached 
the shallow waters of Buffalo creek, where they 
killed him. His home was subsequently found 
by the Indians at Black Rock. 



56 



\i 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 



< » • » > 



LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 

The following letter indicates the origin and motive of 
these notes and memoranda. Such parts only of them are 
retained, as have been referred to as original materials, of 
which there is yet some particular fact or statement which 
has not been exhausted. Sometimes the note itself was 
chiefly of a mnemonic character, and designed to recall fur- 
ther particulars entrusted to the memory. 

Secretary's Office, / 
Mhany, June 25, 1845. \ 
Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. : 

Sir — I have deemed it proper to appoint you to take the 
enumeration of the Indians residing on the following reserva- 
tions, to wit: the Oneida, Onondaga, Tuscarora, and the 
reservations of the Senecas, one or more in each of the coun- 
ties of Alleghany, Cattaraugus, and Erie, and also of the 
Tonewanda Indians in the county of Genesee. Your duties 
are summarily defined in the fifteenth section of the act of the 
legislature, which authorizes me to make this appointment, 
and to which I invite your attention. 

On calling at this oflfice you will be furnished with the 
proper blanks to enable you to perform the duties of the im- 
portant trust committed to your hands, which will indicate 
with sufficient precision the method of ascertaining the imm- 



436 HISTORY OF THE lEOQUOIS. 

bers, ages, sex, condition, and classification of the remnants 
of this interesting race. You will find, on running through 
and examining the blanks, for these returns, full scope for all 
the information that can be of any practical use. 

I desire that you will be very particular and minute in 
your inquiries in respect to every matter which relates to ag- 
ricultural and statistical information, as well as of all other 
information called for by the returns, which will be furnished 
to you. 

It is believed, from the information which has been re- 
ceived at this office, that there may be found, at the different 
reservations, Indians who were not originally of the tribe or 
stock to which they now profess, perhaps, to belong. You 
will, as far as may be in your power, and without exciting 
the jealousy and distrust of the Indians, endeavor to ascertain 
the number of their people, now living at the different re- 
servations, who are not of the original stock or tribe with 
whom they are now sojourning. 

It is important that you do not consolidate or bring into 
one return, any more than the inhabitants of one reservation, 
and a sufficient number of blank returns will be furnished to 
enable you to accomplish this object without any difficulty, 
and you can use some one of the columns which will other- 
wise be found useless, to denote or mark the number who 
derive their subsistence from the chase. 

It is expected that you will complete the enumeration and 
file the several returns in the Secretary's office by the first 
day of September next, that I may be able to prepare ab- 
stracts and copies to be submitted to the legislature at the 
next session. 

You will no doubt experience some difficulties in the per- 
formance of the duties devolved upon you, owing to the jea- 
lousy of the Indians, and the novelty of these proceedings; 
this, it is believed, being the first effort of the kind ever at- 
tempted by the state. You will assure our red brethren that, 
in taking this enumeration of them, and making the inquiries 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 437 

into their present condition and situation, the legislature, the 
governor of the state, or any of the officers, have no other 
objects in view but their welfare and happiness. 

The Indians within our state are under its guardian care 
and protection, and it is a high duty that is now to be per- 
formed of sending a competent and well-qualified citizen to 
visit them, and inquire particularly into their situation. We 
have no connection with the government of the United 
States, or any land company, which prompts to these inqui- 
ries into their present social condition. 

You will be at liberty to extend your inquiries to the early 
history and antiquarian remains of the Indians in the central 
and western parts of the state, but it is desired that these may 
be as brief as the nature of these inquiries will allow. 

With these views of the subject, I commit this important 
trust to your hands, confidently expecting and anticipating a 
very satisfactory result. 

I have the honor to be, with great respect. 

Your ob't ser't, 

N. S. BENTON. 



INDIAN RESERVATIONS IN NEW YORK. 

Cattaraugus county. — Reservation on the Alleghany river; 
Oil Spring reservation (one mile square, no Indians). 

Erie county. — Buffalo creek reservation (sold to Og. co.); 
part of Cattaraugus reservation. 

Alleghany county. — Part of Oil Spring reservation in this 
county. 

Genesee county. — The Tonawanda reservation is princi- 
pally in this county (sold, yet in litigati(m). 

Onondaga county. — Onondaga reservation. 

JViagara county. — Tuscarora Indian reservation. 

Oneida county. — Oneida reservation (dwindled away now, 
to a few individual rights). 



438 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 



MEMORANDA, LOCALITIES TO BE EXAMINED, &C. 

PoMPEY, Onondaga county. — Vestiges of a town, five hun- 
dred acres 5 three circular walls, or elliptical forts, eight miles 
apart; these formed a triangle, enclosing the town. 

Camillus. — Two forts; one, three acres on a high hill; 
east, a gate; west, a spring ten rods off; shape elliptical; 
ditch deep; wall ten feet high: second fort, half a mile dis- 
tant; lower ground; constructed like the other; about half 
as large; shells, testaceous animals, plenty; fragments, pot- 
tery; pieces of brick; "other signs" of ancient settlement, 
found by first settlers. — (^Clinton.) 

East Bank of Seneca River. — Six miles south of Cross 
and Salt lakes; forty miles south of Oswego; discovered 1791 
(New York Magazine, 1792), with picture writing, on a stone 
five feet by three and a half, and six inches thick, evidently 
sepulchral; two hundred and twenty yards length; fifty-five 
yards breadth; bank and ditch entire; two apertures middle 
of parallelogram, one towards the water, other land; second 
work half a mile south; half-moon; outwork; singularity, 
extremities of the crescent from larger fort; bank and ditch 
of both, large old trees; pottery well burned, red, indented; 
these works traced eighteen miles east of Manlius square. 

Oxford, Chenango county. — East banks Chenango river; 
great antiquity; north to Sandy creek, fourteen miles from 
Sackett's Harbor, near one which covers fifty acres; frag- 
ments of pottery west in great numbers. 

Onondaga Town: Scifio: Auburn, two forts: Canandai- 
GUA, three forts; between Cayuga and Seneca lakes, several. 

RmGEWAV, Genesee. — Several forts and places of burial. 

Allen's REsmENCE, 1788. — Two miles west; a flat; de- 
serted Indian village; Junction of Allen's creek with Genesee; 
eight miles north of Kanawageas; five miles north of Magic 
spring; six acres; six gates; ditch eight feet wide, six deep; 
circular on three sides; fourth side, a high bank; a covered 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 439 

way, near two hundred years old; second, half a mile south, 
on a greater eminence; less dimensions, but deeper ditch; 
more lofty and commanding. 

JoAiKA. — Twenty-six miles west of Kanawageas; six miles 
further; Tegatainedaghgwe, or double fortified town; a fort 
at each end; first about four acres; two miles distant another, 
eight acres; ditch about first five or six feet deep; small stream 
one side; traces of six gates; dug way to the water; large 
oaks, two hundred years old or more; remains of a funeral 
pile, bones; mound six feet by twenty, thirty dianieter (sixty 
to ninety"). 

Path to Buffalo Creek. — Heights, fortified. 

West of Tonawanda. — Still another. 

On Branch of the Delaware. — A fort one thousand years 
old, by trees. 

South stoe of Erie. — Cattaraugus creek to Pennsylvania 
line, fifty miles; two to four miles apart, some half a mile; 
some contain five acres; wall and breast -works of earth; 
appearance of ancient beds of creeks; note the geological 
change; Lake Erie retired from two to five miles. 

Further South. — A chain of parallel forts; two table 
grounds; recession of lake. 

All these vestiges denote long periods of time, and proba- 
bly different eras of occupation. Who preceded the Iroquois? 
W^ho preceded their predecessors? Do these vestiges tell the 
story? How shall we study them? By antiquities; by lan- 
guage; by comparison with other races of America, Asia, 
Africa, Europe. 

Albanv. — Examine the site of ancient Mohawk residence, 
in 1609, on the island and its vicinity, at the mouth of Nor- 
man's kill; look for their ancient burial places; bones, pieces 
of pottery, and other objects of art may tell something bear- 
ing on their history. Ts the oasis opposite the turnpike gate, 
the site of their ancient burial ground? Is this the spot de- 
noted by their name of Tawasentha, or is it to be sought in 
other places, at the mouth, or up the valley of this stream? 



440 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Utica. — The Mohawk valley appears to have no monu- 
mental or other evidences of its having been occupied by 
races prior to the Mohawks. 

Vernon. — Who were the original race that first set foot in 
Oneida county? When did the Oneidas come? W^here did 
they originate, and how? They are said to be the youngest 
of the Six Nations. 

L. Hitchcock Esq. says that he was present, when a boy, 
some forty years ago, when the last executions for witchcraft 
among the Oneidas took place. The suspected persons were 
two females. The executioner was Hon Yost. They were 
dispatched unawares, by the tomahawk. 

Sachan, a strong wind, or tempest, was the Oneida name 
for Col. L. Schoolcraft, whose monument is on the banks of 
the Scanado. 

The principal tributary to the Oneida creek which tra- 
verses this rich grazing town, is called after the noted chief, 
to adopt the common pronunciation, Scanado. It means a 
deer. The old orthography for this w^ord is Shenandoah. 

Forced Etymology. — Ot, Judge J. says, means water, in 
the Oneida tongue. Otsego, he adds, is from ot, water, and 
sago, hail, welcome, how d'ye do. This I don't believe. It 
is not in accordance with Indian principles of combination. 

Oneida Language. — The Oneidas call a man lon-gwee; a 
woman, yon-gwee; God, Lonee; Evil Spirit, Kluneolux. 
Some of their words are very musical, as ostia, a bone; alita, 
a shoe; kiowilla, an arrow; awiali, a heart; loainil, a su- 
preme ruler. The French priests, who filled the orthography 
of this language with the letter r, committed one of the 
greatest blunders. There is no sound of r in the language; 
by this letter they constantly represent the sound of I. 

Oneida Castle, — In a conference with Abraham Denne, 
an aged Oneida, he stated that Brant was brought up by his 
(Denne's) grandfather, at Canajoharie; that he was a bas- 
tard, his mother Mohawk; and did not come of a line of 
chiefs. Says, that Scanado was a tory in the war, notwith- 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 441 

standing his high name; that he acted against us at the 
siege of Fort Stanwix. The anecdote of an Indian firing 
from a tree, he places, while they were repairing the fort; 
says that after the man got up, he drew up loaded rifles with 
a cord; that both Scanado and Brant were present. Says 
Scanado was adopted by the nation when quite young; came 
from the west; does not know of what tribe, but showed 
himself smart, and rose to the chieftaincy by his bravery and 
conduct. Say^, that the (syenite) stone on the hill, is the 
true Oneida stone, and not the white stone at the spring; 
was so pronounced by Moses Schuyler, son of Hon Yost, w^ ho 
knew it forty years ago; that the elevation gave a view^ of 
the whole valley, so that they could descry their enemies at 
a distance by the smoke of their fires; no smoke, he said, 
without fire. They could notify also, from this elevation, by 
a beacon fire. The name of the stone is 0-ne-a-ta\ auk, 
added, renders it personal, and means an Oneida. The word 
Oneida is an English corruption of the Indian. 

Origin of the Oneidas, — Abraham Schuyler, an Oneida, 
says that the Oneidas originated in two men, who separated 
themselves from the Onondagas. They first dwelt at the 
outlet of Oneiila lake. Next removed to the outlet of Oneida 
creek, on the lake, where they fortified. Williams says he 
was born there, and is well acquainted with the old fort. 
They then went to the head of the valley at the Oneida 
stone, from which they were named. Their fourth remove 
Avas to the present site of the Oneida castle, called a skull on 
a pole, where they lived at the time of the discovery of the 
country, and settlement of the colony by the Dutch; that is, 
1609 to 1614. 

Etymology of the Oneida Stone. — Asked several Oneidas 
to pronounce the name for the Oneida stone. They gave it 
as follows: 0-ni'O^ta-aug; 0-ne-u-ta-aug; 0-ne-yo-ta-aug. 
The terminal syllable, aug, seems to be a local particle, but 
carries also with its antecedent, ta, the idea of life or exist- 
ence, people, or inhabitants. Oniu is a stone. The meaning 
57 



442 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS; 

clearly is, people of the (or who have sprung from the) place 
of the stone. 

Adirondak, Jourdain pronounces Lod-a-lon-dak, putting Is 
for rs and as. It means a people who eat trees — an ex- 
pression ironically used for those who eat the bark of trees. 
For Cherokees, he gives We-au-dah; for Delawares, Lu-na- 
to-gun. What a mass of fog philologists are fighting with, 
who mistake, as the eminent Vater and Adelung have, in 
some cases done, the different names of the same tribes of 
American Indians for different tribes. 

Antique Corn Hills. — Counted one hundred cortical layers 
in a black w^alnut; centre broke so as to prevent counting 
the whole number, but by measuring estimated one hundred 
and forty more. If so the field was deserted in 1605. 

The present proprietor of the farm comprising the Oneida 
stone, spring, butternut grove, &c., is Job Francis. He first 
hired the land of Hendrik's widow; afterwards he and Gregg 
were confirmed by the state. The white stone at the spring, 
a carbonate of lime, is not the true Oneida stone. The Onei- 
da stone is a syenite, a boulder. 

Onondaga Castle. — Abraham Le Fort says, that Ondiaka 
w^as the great chronicler of his tribe. He had often heard 
him speak of the traditions of his father. On his last jour- 
ney to Oneida he accompanied him. As they passed south 
by Jamesville and Pompey, Ondiaka told him that in ancient 
times, and before they fixed down at Onondaga, they lived 
at these spots. That it was before the Five Nations had 
confederated; but while they kept up a separate existence, 
and fought with each other. They kept fighting and moving 
their villages often. This reduced their numbers, and kept 
them poor and in fear. When they had experienced much 
sickness in a place, they thought it best to quit it, and 
seek some new spot, where it was hoped they would have 
better luck. At length they confederated, and then the forti- 
fications were no longer necessary and fell into disuse. This 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 443 

is the origin, he believes, of these old works, which are not 
of foreie^n origin. 

Ondiaka told Le Fort that the Onondagas were created by 
Ha-wa-ne-o, in the country where they lived. Thai he made 
this entire island, Ha-who-nao, for the red race, and meant it 
for them alone. He did not allude to or acknowledge any 
migrations from foreign lands. 

Their plan, after the confederation, was to adopt prisoners 
and captives; that fragments of tribes were parted amongst 
them, and thus lost. They used the term We-hait-wa-tsha, 
in a figurative sense, in relation to such tribes. This term 
means a body cut and quartered and scattered around. So 
they aimed to scatter their prisoners among the other na- 
tions. There is still blood of the Cherokees in Onondaga. 
A boy of this nation became a chief among the Cherokees. 

I called Le Fort's attention to the residence of the Mora- 
vian missionary, Zoeisberger. He said there was no tradition 
of such residence; that the oldest men remembered no such 
mission; that they were ever strongly opposed to all mis- 
sionaries after the expulsion of the Jesuits, and he felt confi- 
dent no such person, or any person in the character of a 
preacher, had lived at Onondaga Castle; that there must be 
some mistake in the matter. 

Onoxdaga. — Ondiaka told Le Fort that the Onondagas 
formerly wandered about without being long fixed at a place, 
frequently changing their villages from slight causes, such 
as sickness, &c. They were at war with the Iroquois bands. 
They were also at war with other tribes. Hence forts 
were necessary, but after they confederated, such defen- 
sive works fell into disuse. They lived in the present areas 
of De Witt, Lafayette, Pompey and Manlius, along Butternut 
creek, &c. Here the French visited them, and built a fort, 
after their confederation. 

Ezekiel Webster stated that the Indians were never as nu- 
merous as appearances led men to think. This appearance 



444 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

of a heavy population happened from their frequent removals, 
leaving their old villages, which soon assumed the appear- 
ance of ancient populous settlements. 

Nothing is more distinct or better settled in the existing 
traditions of the Iroquois, than their wars with the Cherokees. 
I found this alluded to at Oneida, Onondaga, &c., in the 
course of their traditions, but have not been able to trace a 
cause for the war. They seemed to have been deeply and 
mutually exasperated by perfidy and horrid treachery in the 
course of these wars, such as the breaking of a peace pledge, 
and murder of deputies, &c. Their great object was, as soon 
as young men grew up, to go to war against the Cherokees. 
This long journey was performed without provisions, or any 
other preparation than bows, clubs, spears, and arrows. They 
relied on the forest for food. Thousands of miles were not 
sufficient to dampen their ardor, and no time could blot out 
their hatred. The Oneidas call them We-au-dah. 

Jeremiah Gould went with me to view the twin mounds. 
They exhibit numerous pits or holes, which made me at once 
think oi' the ./"is senjigun, or hiding pit of the western Indians. 
Gould, in answer to my inquiry, said that it was a tradition 
which he did not know how much value it was worth, that 
the Tuscaroras were brought from the south by the Oneidas, 
and first settled in this county. They warred against the 
Onondagas. The latter, to save their corn, buried it in these 
mounds or hills, then hid by the forest. In one of these 
excavations, dug into forty years ago, they found a human 
skull, and other bones belonging to the human frame. 

James Gould went with me over the Butternut stream, to 
show me a mound. It is apparently of geological formation, 
and not artificial. Its sides were covered with large trees, 
the stumps of which remain. There was a level space at the 
top, some four or five paces in diameter, trees and bushes 
around. The apex, as paced, measures one way seventeen, 
the other twelve paces; is elongated. It seemed to have 
been the site of the prophet's lodge. Near it is the old 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 4^5 

burying ground, on an elongated ridge, where the graves 
were ranged in lines. 

Pottery. — Webster gives the tradition of this ancient art 
thus. The women made the kettles. They took clay and 
tempered it with some siliceous or coarse stone. This they 
first burnt thoroughly, so as to make it friable, (probably 
they plunged it while hot into water,) and then pounded it, 
and mixed it with blood. 

Charred Corn, Sfc. — In Ellisburgh is found much charred 
corn beneath the soil, and numerous remains of occupancy 
by the natives. Is this the evidence of Col. Van Schaack's 
expedition into the Onondaga country during the revolu- 
tionary war? His battle with the Indians, tradition here 
says, took place near Syracuse. Bones, supposed to be of 
this era, were discovered in ditching the swamp, near Cort- 
land House. 

Kasonda. — Mr. I. Keeler says that he cut a large oak tree 
near the site of the old fort, two and a half feet through. In 
recutting it at his door, a bullet was found, covered by 143 
cortical layers. It was still some distance to the centre. If 
this tree was cut in 1810, the bullet was fired in 1667. 
Consult Paris Documents, 1666, treaty with the Onondaga 
Iroquois. 

The Goulds say that the fort was a squaie, with bastions, 
and had streets within it. It was set round with cedar pick- 
ets, which had been burnt down to the ground. Stumps of 
them were found by the plough. 

Nearly every article belonging to the iron tools of a black- 
smith shop have been ploughed up at different times— an an- 
vil, horn, vice, screw, &c.; Indian axes, a horse shoe, hinges, 
the strap hinge. A pair of these hangs the wicket gate to 
his house. 

A radius of five to six miles around the old fort, would 
cover all the striking remains of ancient occupancy in the 
towns of De Witt, Lafayette, and Pompey. 



446 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Webster told the Goulds that the French who occupied this 
fort, and had the nucleus of a colony around it, excited the 
jealousy and ire of the Onondagas, by the hostility of some 
western tribes in their influence. Against these the Onondaga 
w^arriors marched. The French than attacked the red men, 
&c. This led to their expulsion and massacre. All were 
killed but a priest, who lived between the present towns of 
Salina and Liverpool. ■ He refused to quit peaceably. They 
then put a chain around a ploughshare, and heating it, hung 
it about his neck; he was thus, with the symbol of agriculture, 
tortured to death. His hut was standing when the country 
was settled. 

The attempt to settle western New York by the French 
was in the age of western chivalry, (the 16th century,) and 
was truly Quixotic. 

Tradition. — Pompey and its precincts were regarded by 
the Indians as the ground of blood, and it brought up to their 
minds many dark reminiscences, as they passed it. Some 
twenty years ago, there lived an aged Onondaga, who said 
that many moons before his father's days, there came a party 
of white men from the east in search of silver. From the 
heights of the Onondaga hills, they descried the white foam 
of Onondaga lake, and this was all the semblance they ever 
found of silver. One of the men died, and was buried on 
Pompey hill, and his grave was marked by a stone.* The 
others built a fort on the noted ground, about a mile east of 
Jamesville, where they cultivated the land; but at length the 
Indians came in the night and put them all to death. But 
there was a fearful and bloody strife, in which the Indians 
fell like leaves before the autumn wind. This spot is the field 
of blood. This was told me by Lucien Birdseye, Esq. 

Aurora. — Called on the Rev. Mr. Mattoon; vestiges of 
the Cayugas; villages; orchards; old forts. Get a vocabu- 

* Query, is not tliis the inscription stone now deposited in the Alba- 
ny Institute. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 447 

lary of their language from Canada; get diagram of forts. 
Karistagea, or Steeltrap, thought to have been unfairly dealt 
with at his death; buried in the road. Fish Carrier's re- 
serve at the bridge; four miles square. Red Jacket born on 
the opposite banks of the lake at Canoga; historical re- 
miniscences of Mr. Burnhara; letter stating the first settle- 
ments on the Military tract at Aurora; address before the 
G. 0. T. ; folly of keeping the society secret; intelligence, 
moral tone, hospitality of the place; cars at Cayuga bridge; 
Logan was the son of a Cayuga; did the Cayugas conquer 
the Tutelos of Virginia, and adopt the remnant? Cayugas 
scattered among the Senecas, in Canada and west of the 
Mississippi; how many left? what annuities? 

Geneva. — Ancient site of the Senecas; origin of the word 
Seneca; is it Indian or not Indian? examine old forts said to 
exist, in this area; are there any vestiges of Indian occupancy 
at the Old Castle, at Cashong, Painted Post, Catherinestown, 
Appletown? 

Canandaigua. — In visiting Fort hill on the lake, see what 
vestiges; another site bearing this name, exists to the north 
of Blossom's; what antiquities? what traditions? ask old 
residents; inquire of Senecas west. 

Rochester. — Nothing left here of the footprints of the 
race; all covered deep and high with brick and stone; whole 
valley of the Genesee worthy examination, in all its lengths 
and branches; wants the means of an antiquarian society to 
do this. 

Truly the Iroquois have had visited upon them the fate 
with which they visited others. They destroyed and scat- 
tered, and have, in turn, been destroyed and scattered. But 
their crime was the least. They destroyed as heathens, but 
we as Christians. In any view, the antiquarian interest is 
the same, the moral interest the same. The Iroquois had 
noble hearts. They sighed for fame. They took hold of the 
tomahawk as the only mode of distinction. They brought up 
their young men to the war-dance. They carefully taught 



448 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

them the aits of war. We have other avenues to distinction. 
Let us now direct their manly energies to other channels. 
The hand that drew a bow can be taught to guide a plough. 
Civilization has a thousand attractions. The hunter state 
had but one. The same skill once devoted to war would 
enable them to shine in the arts of peace. Why can not their 
bright men be made sachems of the pen, of the press, of the 
pulpit, of the lyre? 

Batavia. — There are still traces of a mound on Knowlton's 
farm, a mile from Batavia, up the Tonewanda. Bones and 
glass beads have been ploughed out of it. Other traces of 
former aboriginal occupancy exist in the vicinity, a stone 
pestle, axes, &c., having been found. The Indian name of 
Batavia is Ge-ne-u7i-dah-sais-ka, meaning musquito. This 
was the name by which they knew the late Mr. Ellicott. 

The Tonewanda falls forty feet at a single place, within 
the Indian reservation. It heads on high ground about forty 
miles above Batavia. On the theory of the former elevation 
of Lake Erie, Buffalo itself would be the highest ground, be- 
tween Batavia and the lake, in a direct line. Attica is, 
perhaps, more elevated in that direction. 

Tonewanda Reservation. — The Senecas call themselves 
JVun-do-waw-ga, or people of the hill. The term Seneca is 
taken from the lake, on the banks of which they formerly 
lived, and had their castle. It is not a name of Indian ori- 
gin. They are called JVun-do-waw-ga, from the eminence 
called Fort hill, near Canandaigua lake. 

They call the Cherokees 0-yau-dah, which means a people 
who live in caves. Their enmity against this people, the 
tradition of which is so strong and clear, is staled to have 
originated from the contact of war and hunting parties, in 
the plains of the southwest. The Senecas affirm that the 
Cherokees roblKnl and plundered a Seneca party and took 
away their skins. Retaliation ensued. Tragic scenes of 
treachery and surprise followed. The Five Nations took up 
the matter in all their strength, and raised large and strong 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 449 

war parties, who marched through the country to the Chero- 
kee borders, and fought and plundered the villages, and 
brought away scalps and prisoners. Tliere are now de- 
scendants of Cherokees in the third degree, living on the 
Tonawanda reservation, [Ho-ho-ee-yuh). Some years ago, a 
chief of this blood, pure by father and mother, lived among 
them, who had been carried off captive when a boy. The 
fact being revealed to him, after he had obtained the chief- 
taincy, he went south to seek his relations and live and die 
among them, but he was unable to find them. He came 
back to the Senecas, and died among them, (Le Fort). 

The most curious trait, of w^hich we know but little, is that 
respecting Totems. Asked the chief called Blacksmith, his 
name in Seneca. He replied De-o-ne-hoh-gah-wah, that is, 
a door perforated, or violently broken through, not opened. 
Says he was born on the Tonawanda reservation, and wishes 
to die there; will be 60 years old, in the winter of 1346. 

Says the Senecas call the fort Stanwix or Rome summit, 
De-o-wain-sta, meaning the place where canoes are carried 
across the land from stream to stream; that is, a carrying 
place. 

Says, Te-to-yoah, or William Jones of Cattaraugus, can 
relate valuable Seneca traditions. 

He says there are eight Seneca clans; they are the Wolf, 
Bear, Turtle, Deer, Plover, Beaver, Hawk and Crane. He 
is of the Wolf clan. This was also Red Jacket's clan. 
These clans may be supposed to have arisen from persons 
who had greatly distinguished themselves at an early period 
as founders, or benefactors, or they may have held some such 
relation to the original nation, as the Curatii and Horatii, in 
Roman history. It is not only the Iroquois, who ascribed 
this honor to the clans of the Bear, the Turtle and the Wolf. 
They are equally honored among most of the Algonquin tribes. 

Osteological Remains. — In the town of Cambria, six miles 
west of Lockport, a Mr. Hammon, who was employed with 
his boy in hoeing corn in 1824, observed some bones of a 

58 



450 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

child, exhumed. No farther thought was bestowed upon the 
subject for some time, for the plain on the ridge was supposed 
to have been the site of an Indian village, and this was sup- 
posed to be the remains of some child, who had been recently 
buried there. Eli Bruce, hearing the circumstance, proposed 
to Mr. H. that they should repair to the spot, with suitable 
instruments, and endeavor to find some relics. The soil was 
a light loam, which would be dry and preserve bones for cen- 
turies without decay. A search enabled them to come to a 
pit, but a slight distance from the surface. The top of the pit 
was covered with small slabs of the Medina sandstone, and 
was twenty-four feet square, by four and a half in depth — the 
planes agreeing with the four cardinal points. It was filled 
with human bones of both sexes and all ages. They dug 
down at one extremity and found the same layers to extend 
to the bottom, which was the same dry loam, and from their 
calculations, they deduced that at least four thousand souls 
had perished in one great massacre. In one skull, two flint 
arrow heads were found, and many had the appearance of 
having been fractured and cleft open, by a sudden blow. 
They were piled in regular layers, but with no regatd to size 
or sex. Pieces of pottery were picked up in the pit, and had 
also been ploughed up in the field adjacent. Traces of a log 
council house were plainly discernible. For, in an oblong 
square, the soil was poor, as if it had been cultivated, till the 
whites broke it up; and where the logs of the house had de- 
cayed, was a strip of rich mould. A maple tree, over the pit, 
being cut down, two hundred and fifty concentric circles were 
counted, making the mound to be A. D. ]574. It has been 
supposed by the villagers that the bones were deposited there 
before the discovery of America, but the finding of some 
metal tools with a French stamp, places the date within our 
period. One hundred and fifty persons a day visited this spot 
the first season, and carried off portions of the bones. They 
are now nearly all gone, and the pit ploughed over. Will 
any antiquarian inform us, if possible, why these bones were 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 451 

placed here? To what tribe do they belong? \Mien did 
such a massacre occur? 

None of the bones of the men were below middle size, but 
some of them were very large. The teeth were in a perfectly 
sound state. 

Present Means of Living on the Reservation. — These are: 
1. Rent of land from twelve shillings to three dollars per 
acre; 2. Sale of timber, fire wood, hemlock bark, staves, saw 
logs; 3. Fishing and hunting, very little now; 4. Raise corn, 
cattle, horses, hogs, some wheat, &c., &c., cut hay; young 
men hire themselves out in harvest time. 

Human Bones. — At Barne^^at is an ancient ridge, or narrow 
raised path, leading from the river some miles, through low 
grounds; it is an ancient burial ground, on an island, in a 
swamp. Bones of the human frame, bone needles, and other 
ancient remains, are ploughed up at an ancient station, fort or 
line, in Shelby. A human head, petrified, was ploughed up 
by Carrington, sen., in a field in Alabama, Genesee county, 
and is now in the possession of Mr. Grant, at Barnegat. 
These are believed to be remains of the ancient Eries. Pe- 
trified tortoises are said to be ploughed up in many places. 

Opinion of a Chief of the word Seneca. — De-o-ne-hoh-gah- 
wah is the most influential chief of the Tonawandas. He is 
of the Wolf tribe, born on the forks of the Tonawanda, and is 
59 years old. Being interrogated as to the Seneca history, 
he says that the tradition of the tribe is clear; that they lived 
on the banks of the Seneca and Canandaigua lakes. They 
were called Dun-do-wau-onuh, or People of the Hill, from 
an eminence now called Fort hill, at the head of Canandaigua 
lake. They are now called, or, rather, call themselves, Nun- 
do-\vau-gau. The inflection onuh, in former times, denoted 
residence, at a hill; the particle ao"aw, in the latter, is a more 
enlarged term for locality, corresponding to their present dis- 
persed condition. 

The word Seneca, he affirms, is not of Indian origin. 
While they lived in Ontario, there was a white man called 



452 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Seneca, who lived on the banks of the lake of that name. 
Who he was, where he came from, and to what nation he 
belonged, he does not know. But wherever he originated, 
he was noted for his bravery, wisdom and strength. He be- 
came so proverbial for these noble qualities, that it was usual 
to say of such, and such a one, among themselves, he is as 
brave as Seneca, as wise as Seneca, as noble as Seneca. 
Whether the lake was called after him, or he took his name 
from the lake, is not known. But the name itself is of Euro- 
pean origin. The tribe were eventually called Senecas from 
their local residence. The idea, he says, was pleasing to 
them, for they thought themselves the most brave and in- 
domitable of men. Of all the races of the Ongw^e-Honwe, 
they esteemed themselves the most superior in courage, endu- 
rance and enterprize. He refers to Te-to-yoah of Cattarau- 
gus for further information. 

On reference to Te-to-yoah, some time afterwards, he had 
no tradition on this particular subject. The probability is, 
that Blacksmith meant only to say, that the name Avas not of 
his tribe or JVundowaga. So far is true. What he says of a 
great man living on Seneca lake, &c., in older times, is pro- 
bably a reproduction, in his mind, of an account of Seneca, 
the moralist, which has been told him, or some Indian from 
whom he had it, in days by-gone. As the name of Seneca 
is one of the earliest we hear, after 1609, it was probably a 
Mohawk term for that people. It is spelt with a k in old 
French authors. 

Lewiston. — The Tuscarora clans are the following: the 
Turtle, the Wolf, the Bear, the Beaver, the Snipe, or Plover, 
the Eel (this is not an Iroquois totem), the Land Tortoise. 
They have lost the Falcon, Deer, and Crane, perhaps in their 
disastrous wars of 1713. By this, it appears they have lost 
one clan entirely — probably in their defeat on the Taw river, 
in North Carolina. Two others of the clans are changed, 
namely, the Falcon and Deer, for which they have substituted 
the Land Tortoise and Eel. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 453 

Descent is by the chief's mother and her clan, her daugh- 
ter or nearest kin, to be settled in council. The adoption 
of chiefs was allowed, where there was failure of descent. 

Curious barrow, or mound, on Dr. Scovill's place; to be 
examined;* two others, near the old mill and orchard; old 
fort of Kienuka, to be visited, (see plate, p. 210); get vo- 
cabulary of Tuscarora to compare. This tribe has gone 
through a severe ordeal; their history is full of incident. 
The following list shows their number in North Carolina, 
and all other Indians of that colony in 1708: — Tuscaroras 
living in fifteen towns, 1,200 men; Waccons, in two towns, 
120; Maramiskeets, 30; Bear Rivers, 50; Hatteras, 16; 
Neus, in two towns, 15; Pamlico, 15; Meherrin, 50; Cho- 
wan, 15; Paspatank, 10; Poteskeets of Carrituk, 30; Not- 
toways, 30; Connamox, in two towns, 25; Jaupim, 2: total, 
1,608. 

Visited James Cusick, the brother of David the Indian 
archseologist, preacher to the Tuscs; pictures in the house; 
old deeds from Carolina. 

Sunday, attended Mr. Rockwood's meeting; admirable 
behavior of all; dress well, good singing; W, Chew inter- 
prets; females, however, adhere to their ancient costume; 
women more pertinacious in their social habits and customs 
than men. 

Tuscaroras raise much wheat, cattle, horses, quite in ad- 
vance of the other tribes in agriculture. They own the fee 
simple of about five thousand acres, which they purchased 
from the Holland Company, besides their reservation. 

Niagara Falls. — This name is Mohawk. It means, ac- 
cording to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied 
to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and On- 
tario. By referring to Mr. Elliot's vocabulary, (chap, xi,) 
it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the 

• Subsequently opened by the doctor, but nothing of much note found; 
a rude heap of the Niagara gorge stone. 



454 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pro- 
nounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as 
it" written 0-ne-cui-ga-rah. 

. Buffalo. — Whence this name? The Indian term is Te- 
ho-so-ro-ro in Mohawk; and De-o-se-o-wa in Seneca ;«Ellicott 
writes it Tu-slit-way; others, in other forms; in all, it is ad- 
mitted to mean the place of the linden, or bass-wood tree. 
There is an old story of buffaloes being killed here. Some 
say a hoi'se was killed by hungry Frenchmen, and palmed 
off for buffalo meat at the camp. How came a horse here ? 
A curious bone needle was dug up this year, in some exca- 
vations made in Fort Niagara, which is, clearly, of the age 
prior to the discovery. Bones and relics must stand for the 
chronology of American antiquity. America is the tomb of 
the red men. All the interest of its anti-Columbian history, 
arises from this fact. 

Fries. — By a letter. Father Le Moyne's, of 1653, (vide 
Relacions,) the war with the nation of the Cat or Fries, was 
then newly broken out. He thanks the Onondagas, Senecas, 
Cayugas, and Oneidas, for their union in this war. " On the 
9th of August, 1653, we heard," says he, " a dismal shout 
among the Iroquois, caused by the news, that three of their 
men had been killed by the Fries." He condoles with the 
Seneca nation, on the capture of their great chief, Au-ren- 
cra-os, by the Fries. He exoits them to strengthen their de- 
fences, or forts, to paint their warriors for battle, to be united 
in council. He requires them never to lay in ambush for the 
Algonquin or Huron nations, who might be on their way to 
visit the French. We learn, from this, that the Fries or Cat 
nation were not of the Wyandot or Huron, nor of the Algon- 
quin nations. It would seem that these Fries were not friends 
of the French, and that by exciting them to this new war, 
they were shielding their friends, the Algons and Hurons, 
from the Iroquois club and scalping knife. That they were 
the same people called the Neuter Nation, who occupied the 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 455 

banks of the Niagara, there is not a little reason to believe. 
The Senecas call them Gawgiva or Kah-ktcah. 

Cusick states that the Senecas fought against a people, 
west of the Genesee river, called Squakihaw, that is, Kali- 
kwah, whom they beat, and after a long siege took their 
principal fort, and put their chief to death. Those who re- 
covered were made vassals and adopted into the tribe. He 
states that the banks of the Niagara river were possessed by 
the Twa-kenkahor, or Missasages, who, in time, gave it up 
to the Iroquois peaceably. Were not these latter, firm allies 
of the Neuter Nation? 

To discuss the question of the war with the Eries, it is 
necessary to advert to the geographical position of the par- 
ties. The Senecas, in 1653, as appears by French authori- 
ties, lived in the area between the Seneca lake and the Gene- 
see river. The original stock of the Five Nations appears 
to have entered the area of western New York in its central 
portions; and, at all events, they extended west of the Gene- 
see, after the Erie war, and possessed the land conquered 
from the latter. 

Mission Station, Buffalo Reservation. — Seventy-four Sene- 
ca chiefs attended the general council held here. Putting 
their gross population at 2,500, this gives one chief to every 
thirty-three souls. 

The Seneca lancruaKe has been somewhat cultivated. Mr. 
Wright, the missionary, who has mastered the language, has 
printed a spelling book of 1 12 pages, also a periodical tract 
for reading, called the Mental Elevator. Both valuable 
philological data. 

The Senecas of this reservation are on the move for Catta- 
raugus and Alleghany, having sold out, finally, to the Ogden 
company. They leave tlieir old homes and cemetery, how- 
ever, with " longing, lingering looks." 

Here lie the bones of Red Jacket and Mary Jemison. 
Curious and interesting reminiscences the Senecas have; 



456 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

can't always separate fiction from fact; they must go together ; 
for often, if the fiction or allegory be pulled up, the fact has 
no roots to sustain itself. 

, Philology. — The Seneca language has a masculine, femi- 
nine and neuter gender. It has also an animate and inani- 
mate gender, making five genders. It has a general and 
dual plural. It abounds in compounds descriptive and de- 
rivative terms, like the Algonquin. They count by the deci- 
mal mode. There are names for the digits to ten. Twenty is 
a compound of two and ten, and thirty of three and ten, &c. 
The comparison of adjectives is effected by prefixes, not by 
inflections, or by changes of the M'ords, as in English. Nouns 
have adjective inflections as in the Algonquin. Thus o-a- 
deh is a road, o-a-i-yu a good road. The inflection in this 
last word, is from wi-yii, good. 

Irving, Mouth of Cattaraugus. — This is a fine natural har- 
bor, and port of refuge. Its neglect appeai-s strange, but it 
is to be attributed to the influence of capitalists at Silver 
Creek, Dunkirk, Barcelona, &c. 

It is a maxim with the Iroquois, that a chief's skin should 
be thicker than that of the thorn locust, that it may not be 
penetrated by the thorns. Indian speakers never impugn 
each other's 'motives when speaking in public council. In 
this, they offer an example. 

Indians in Canada. — It is observed by a report of the Ca- 
nadian pailiament, that the number of Indians now in Cana- 
da is 12,000. Of these, 3,301 are residing in Lower Canada, 
and the remainder 8,862, in Canada West. The number of 
Indians is stated to be on the increase, partly from a nu- 
merous immigration of tribes from the United States. This 
report must be taken with allowances. It is, at best, but an 
estimate, and in this respect, the Canadians, like ourselves, 
are apt to over estimate. 

The Indian is a man who has certainly some fine points of 
character; one would think a man of genius could turn him 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 457 

to account. Why then are Indian tales and poems failures? 
They fail in exciting deep sympathy. We do not feel that 
he has a heart. 

The Indian must be humanized before he can be loved. 
This is the defect in the attempts of poets and novelists. 
They do not show the reader that the red man has a feeling, 
sympathizing heart, and feeling and sympathies like his own, 
and consequently he is not interested in the tale. It is a tale 
of a statue, cold, exact, stiff, but without life. It is not a 
man with man's ordinary loves and hopes and hates. Hence 
the failure of our Yamoydens, and Ontwas, and Escallalas, 
and a dozen of poems, which, although having merits, slum- 
ber in type and sheepskin, on the bookseller's shelf 

HoRTs' Corners, Cattaraugus county. — One seems here, as 
if he had suddenly been pitched into some of the deep gorges 
of the Alps, surrounded with cliffs and rocks and woods, in 
all imaginable wildness. 

Cold Spring, Alleghany river, Sept. 3. — Reached the Indian 
village on the reservation at this place, at 9 o'clock in the 
morning. Indians call the place Te-o-ni-gon-o, or De-o-ni- 
gon-o, which means Cold Spring. Locality of the farmer 
employed by Quakers, at the mouth of a creek, called Tuna- 
sassa; means a clear stream with a pebbly bed. Alleghany 
river they call Oheo, making no difference between it, and the 
stream after the inlet of the Monongahela. Gov. Blacksnake 
absent; other chiefs, with his son Jacob, meet in council; bu- 
siness adjusted with readiness. Alleghany river low; very 
different in its volume of water and appearance from what it 
was twenty-seven years before, when I descended it, on my 
way to the icest. Lumbering region; banks lined with 
shingles, boards, saw logs. Indians act as guides and lum- 
bermen. Not a favorable location for the improvement of 
the Senecas; steal their timber; cheat them in bargains; 
sell whiskey to them. Had the imaginative Greeks lived in 
Alleghany county, they would have pictured the Genesee and 
Alleghany rivers, as two girls, who having shaken hands, part- 
59 



458 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

ed, the one to skip and leap and run eastward to find the St. 
Lawrence, and the other to laugh through the Ohio valley, 
until she gradually melted into the ocean in the gulf of Mexico. 

Napoli Centre. — The counties of Cattaraugus, Chautauque 
and Alleghany, and part of Wyoming and Steuben, constitute 
a kind of Switzerland. The surface of the country resembles 
a piece of rumpled calico, full of knobs and ridges and val- 
leys, in all possible shapes and directions. It is on the aver- 
age elevated. Innkeepers and farmers encountered on two 
trips over it, say that there is considerably more moisture in 
the shape of rain, and dews and fogs, than in the Genesee 
country. It is less valuable for wheat, but good for corn, 
grass, and raising stock. Nothing can be more picturesque. 
The hills are often cultivated to their very tops. It is healthy. 
Such a region is a treasure in a state so level and placid as 
much of western New York; and had it the means of ready 
access to markets, and to the Atlantic, it would, in a few 
years, be spotted with gentlemens' seats from the seaboard. 
There are some remarkable examples of the east and west, 
and north and south fissures of rocks (a trait also noted at 
Auburn,) in these counties. At one place, the fissures are so 
wide, and the blocks of rock between so large, that the spot 
is sometimes called city of rocks. The rock here is conglo- 
merate, that is, the bed of the coal formation; a fact which 
denotes the elevation of the country. It is to be hoped, 
when this country is further subdivided into counties and 
towns, that some of the characteristic and descriptive names 
of the aborigines will be retained. 

Loui. — This bright, busy, thriving place, is a curiosity 
from the fact, that the Cattaraugus creek, (a river it should 
be called,) splits it exactly or nearly so, in two parts, the one 
being in Erie, the other in Cattaraugus. Efforts to get a 
new county, and a county seat, have heretofore been made. 
These conflict with similar efforts, to have a county seat lo- 
cated at Irving, at the mouth of the creek. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 459 

Eighteen Mile Creek. — Here are vestiges of the Indians' 
old forts, town sites, &c. Time and scrutiny are alone neces- 
sary to bring out its antiquities. 

Batavia. — The Tonawandas at length consent to have their 
census taken. , 

Auburn. — Go with Mr. Goodwin to visit Owasco lake; 
Gov. Throop's place; Old Dutch church overlooking the lake, 
&c. ; extensive vestiges of an elliptical work exist on Fort 
ill; curious rectangular fisures of the limestone rock on the 
Owasco outletj north and south. The Indian name of this 
place, as told by an Onondaga chief, is Osco; first called by 
the whites, Hardenburgh's Corners; finally named from Gold- 
smith's Deserted Village; so that the poet may be said to 
have had a hand in supplying names for a land to which he 
once purposed to migrate. It would have pleased " poor 
Goldsmith" could he have known that he was the parent of 
the name for so fine a town — a town thriving somewhat on 
the principle laid down in the concluding lines of the poem — 

'' While self-dependent power can lime defy, 
As rocks resist the billows and the sky."' 

Syracuse. — Pity a better name could not have been found 
for so fine, central, capital a site. The associations are now 
all wrong. What had Dionysius or Archimedes to do here? 
It was Atotarho, Garangula, Dekanifora, Ontiyaka, and their 
kindred, who made the place famous. Onondaga would have 
been a far better appellation. The Indians called the lake 
and its basin of country together, Gan-on-do-a. Salt point, 
or the sdine, sounded to me as if it might be written Ka-di- 
ka-do. 

Utica. — There was a ford in the Mohawk .here. It was 
the site of Fort Schuyler — a fort named after Major Schuy- 
ler, a man of note and niilitary prowess in the olden time, 
long before the days of General Philip Schuyler. Some 
philological goose, writing from the Canadas, makes Utica 
an Indian name. 



460 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Albanv, Mouth of the Norman's Kill, or Tawasentha. — 
Mr, Brayton says, that in digging the turnpike road, in 
ascending Kiddenhook hill, on the road to Bethlehem, many 
human bones, supposed to be Indian, were found. They 
w^e so numerous that they were put in a box and buried. 
This ancient burial ground, which I visited, was at a spot 
where the soil is light and sandy. On the hill, above his 
house, is a level field, where arrow-heads have been found in 
large numbers. Mr. B., who has lived here sixteen years, 
does not know that the isolated high ground, east of the 
turnpike gate, contains ancient bones; has not examined it 
with that view. Says Mr. Russell, in the neighborhood, has 
lived there fifty years, and will ask him. Nothing could be 
more likely, than that this oasis on the low land should have 
served as the cemetery for the Mohawks, who inhabited the 
island, where the Dutch first landed and built a fort in 1614. 

The occupancy of this island by the Indians could never 
have been any thing but a summer residence, for it is subject 
to be inundated every year by the breaking up of the river. 
This was probably the cause why the Dutch almost immedi- 
ately abandoned it, and went a little higher, to the main 
land, where Albany now stands. The city, however, such 
are the present signs of its wealth and progress, has extended 
down quite half way to the parallel of the original site of 
Het Casteel, under Christianse, and should these signs con- 
tinue, within twenty years South Pearl street will present 
lines of compact dwellings and stores to the bridge over the 
Tawasentha, and Kiddenhook be adorned with country seats. 

Franchise. — Whatever else can be done for the red race, 
it is yet my opinion, that nothing w^ould be as permanently 
beneficial, in their exaltation and preservation, as their ad- 
mission to the rights and immunities of citizens. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 461 



SKETCHES OF AN INDIAN COUNCIL. 

A grand council of the confederate Iroquois, writes Mr. G. 
S. Riley, of Rochester, was held Oct. 1, 1845, at the Indian 
Council House, on the Tonawanda reservation, in the county 
of Genesee. Its proceedings occupied three days. It em- 
braced representatives from all the Six Nations; the Mo- 
hawk, the Onondaga, the Seneca, the Oneida, the Cayuga, 
and the Tuscarora. It is the only one of the kind -which has 
been held for a number of years, and is, probably, the last 
which will ever be assembled with a full representation of 
all the confederate nations. 

The Indians from abroad arrived at the council grounds, or in 
the immediate vicinity, two days previous; and one of the most 
interesting spectacles of the occasion, was the entry of the 
different nations upon the domain and hospitality of the 
Senecas, on whose ground the council was to be held. The 
representation of Mohawks, coming as they did from Canada, 
was necessarily small. The Onondagas,with the acting todo- 
dahhoh of the confederacy, and his two counsellors, made an 
exceedingly creditable appearance. Nor was the array of 
Tuscaroras, in point of numbers at least, deficient in attract- 
ive and imposing features. 

We called upon and were presented to Blacksmith, the 
most influential and authoritative of the Seneca sachems. 
He is about sixty years old, is somewhat portly, is easy enouoh 
in his manners, and is well disposed, and even kindly towards 
all who convince him that they have no sinister designs in 
coming among his people. 

Jemmy Johnson is the great high priest of the confederacy. 
Though now sixty-nine years old, he is yet an erect, fine look- 
ing, and energetic Indian, and is both hospitable and intel- 
ligent. He is in possession of the medal presented by Wash- 
ington to Red Jacket in 1792, which, among other things of 
interest, he showed us. 



462 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

It would be imcompatible with the present purpose, to de- 
scribe all the interesting men who there assembled, among 
whom were Captain Frost, Messrs. Le Fort, Hill, John Jacket, 
Dr. Wilson and others. We spent much of the time during 
the week in conversation with the chiefs and most intelligent 
Indians of the different nations, and gleaned from them much 
information of the highest interest, in relation to the organi- 
zation, government, and laws, religion, customs of the peo- 
ple, and characteristics of the great men, of the old and once 
powerful confederacy. It is a singular fact, that the peculiar 
government and national characteristics of the Iroquois, is a 
most interesting field for research and inquiry, which has 
never been very thoroughly, if at all, investigated, although 
the historic events which marked the proud career of the 
confederacy, have been perscveringly sought and treasured up 
in the writings of Stone, Schoolcraft, Hcsmer, Yates, and 
others. 

Many of the Indians speak English readily, but with the 
aid and interpretations of Mr. Ely S. Parker, a young Seneca 
of no ordinar}- degree of attainment, in both scholarship and 
general intelligence, and who, with Le Fort, the Onondaga, 
is well versed in old Iroquois matters, we had no difficulty in 
conversing with any and all we chose to. 

About mid-day on Wednesday, Oct. 1, the council com- 
menced. The ceremonies with which it was opened and con- 
ducted, were certainly unique — almost indescribable; and as 
its proceedings were in the Seneca tongue, they were in a 
great measure unintelligible, and in fact profoundly mysteri- 
ous to the pale faces. One of the chief objects for which the 
council had been convoked, was to fill two vacancies in the 
sachemships of the Seiiecas, which had been made by the 
death of the former incumbents; and preceding the in- 
stallation of the candidates for the succession, there was a 
ireneral and dolorous lament for the deceased sachems, the 
utterance of which, together with the repetition of the laws 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 463 

of the confederacy — the installation of the new sachems — 
the impeachment and deposition of three unfaithful sachems — 
the elevation of others in their stead, and the performance of 
the various ceremonies attendant upon these proceedings, 
consumed the principal part of the afternoon. 

At the setting of the sun, a bountiful repast, consisting of 
an innumerable number of rather formidable looking chunks of 
boiled fresh beef, and an abundance of bread and succotash, 
was brought into the council house. The manner of saying 
grace on this occasion was indeed peculiar. A kettle being 
brought, hot and smoking from the fire, and placed in the 
centre of the council house, there proceeded from a single 
person, in a high shrill key, a prolonged and monotonous 
sound, resembling that of the syllable wah or yah. This was 
immediately followed by a response from the whole multitude, 
uttering in a low and profoundly guttural but protracted tone, 
the syllable whe or swe, and this concluded grace. It was 
impossible not to be somewhat mirthfully affected at the first 
hearing of grace, said in this novel manner. It is, however, 
pleasurable to reflect that the Indian recognizes the duty of 
rendering thanks to the Divine Being, in some formal way, 
for the bounties and enjoyments which he bestows; and were 
an Indian to attend a public feast among his pale faced breth- 
ren, he would be affected, perhaps to a greater degree of mar- 
vel, at witnessing a total neglect of this ceremony, than we 
were at his singular way of performing it. 

After supper, commenced the dances. All day Tuesday, 
and on Wednesday, up to the time that the places of the 
deceased sachems had been filled, every thing like undue joy- 
fulness had been restrained. This was required by the re- 
spect customarily due to the distinguished dead. But now, 
the bereaved sachemships being again filled, all were to give 
utterance to gladness and joy. A short speech from Capt. 
Frost, introductory to the enjoyments of the evening, was re- 
ceived with acclamatory approbation; and soon eighty or 
ninety of these sons and daughters of the forest — the old men 



464 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

and the young, the maidens and matrons — were engaged in 
the dance. It was indeed a rare sight. 

Only two varieties of dancing were introduced the first 
evening; the trotting dance and the fish dance. The figures 
of either are exceedingly simple, and but slightly different 
from each other. In the first named, the dancers all move 
round a circle, in a single file, and keeping time in a sort of 
trotting step to an Indian song of yo-ho-ha, or yo-ho-h':-]ia- 
ho, as sung by the leaders, or occasionally by all conjoined. 
In the other, there is the same movement in single file round 
a circle, but every two persons, a man and a M^oman, or two 
men, face each other, the one moving forward, the other back- 
ward, and all keeping step to the music of the singers, who 
are now, however, aided by a couple of tortoise cr turtle shell 
rattles, or an aboriginal drum. At regular intervals, there is 
a sort of cadence in the music, during which a change of po- 
sition by all the couples takes place, the one who had been 
moving backward taking the place of the one moving for- 
ward, when all again move onwai'd, one-half of the whole, of 
course, being obliged to follow on by advancing backwards ! 

One peculiarity in Indian dancing would probably strongly 
commend itself to that class among pale faced beaux and 
belles denominated the bashful; though perhaps it would not 
suit others as well. The men, or a number of them, usually 
begin the dance alone; and the women, or each of them, se- 
lecting the one with whom she would like to dance, presents 
herself at his side as he approaches, and is immediately re- 
ceived into the circle. Consequently, the young Indian beau 
knows nothing of the tact required to handsomely invite and 
gallantly lead a lady to the dance; and the young Indian 
maiden, unannoyed by obnoxious olfers, at her own conve- 
nience, gracefully presents her personage to the one she de- 
signs to favor, and thus quietly engages herself in the dance. 
And moreover, while an Indian beau is not necessarily obliged 
to exhibit any gallantry as towards a belle, till she has herself 
manifested her own good pleasure in the matter, so, therefore, 



ORIGINAL NOTES 465 

the belle cannot indulge herself in vascillant flirtations with 
any considerable number of beaux, without being at once de- 
tected. 

On Thursday the religious ceremonies commenced; and 
the council from the time it assembled, which was about 11 
o'clock, A. M., till 3 or 4 o'clock, P. M., gave the most seri- 
ous attention to the preaching of Jemmy Johnson, the great 
high priest, and the second in the succession under the new 
revelation. Thouoh there are some evano-elical believers 
among the Indians, the greater portion of them cherish the 
religion of their fathers. This, as they say, has been some- 
what changed by the new revelation, which the Great Spirit 
made to one of their prophets about forty-seven years ago, 
and which, as they also believe, was approved by Washing- 
ton. The profound regard and veneration which the Indian 
has ever retained towards the name and memory of Washing- 
ton, is most interesting evidence of his universally appreciated 
worth ; and the fact that the red men regard him not merely as 
one of the best, but as the very best man that ever has existed, 
or that will ever exist, is beautifully illustrated in a singular 
credence Avhich they maintain even to this day, namely, that 
Washington is the only white man who has ever entered 
Heaven, and is the only one who will enter there, till the end 
of the world. 

Among the Senecas, public religious exercises take place 
but once a year. At these times Jemmy Johnson preaches 
hour after hour, for three days; and then rests from any pub- 
lic discharge of ecclesiastical offices the remaining three hun- 
dred and sixty-two days of the year. On this, an unusual oc- 
casion, he restricted himself to a few hours in each of the last 
two days of the council. We were told by young Parker, 
who took notes of his preaching, that his subject matter on 
Thursday abounded with good teachings, enforced by appro- 
priate and happy illustrations and striking imagery. After 
he had finished, the council took a short respite. Soon, how- 
ever, a company of warriors ready and eager to engage in the 
60 



466 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

celebrated corn dance, made their appearance. They were 
differently attired. While some were completely enveloped 
in a closely fitting and gaudy colored garb; others, though 
perhaps without intending it, had made wonderfully close ap- 
proaches to an imitation of the costume said to have been so 
fashionable in many parts of the state of Geoigia duiing the 
last hot summer, and which is also said to have consisted sim- 
ply of a shirt collar and a pair of spurs. But in truth, these 
warriors, with shoulders and limbs in a state of nudity, with 
faces bestreaked with paints, with jingling trinkets dang- 
ling at their knees, and with feathered war-caps waving 
above them, presented a truly picturesque and romantic ap- 
pearance. When the centre of the council house had been 
cleared, and the musicians with the shell rattles had taken 
their places, the dance commenced; and for an hour and a 
half, perhaps two hours, it proceeded with surprising spirit 
and energy. Almost every posture of which the human frame 
is susceptible, without absolutely making the feet to be up- 
permost, and the head for once to assume the place of the 
feet, was exhibited. Some of the attitudes of the dancers, 
were really imposing, and the dance as a whole, could be got 
up and conducted only by Indians. The women, in the per- 
formance of the corn dance, are quite by themselves; keeping 
time to the beat of the shells, and gliding along sideways, 
without scarcely lifting their feet from the floor. 

It would probably be well, if the Indian every where could 
be inclined to refrain at least from the more grotesque and 
boisterous peculiarities of this dance. The influence of these 
cannot be productive of any good; and it is questionable, 
whether it will be possible, so long as they are retained, to 
assimilate them to any greater degree of civilization, or to 
more refined methods of living and enjoyment, than they now 
possess. The same may be said of certain characteristics of 
the still more Vandalic war dance. This, however, was not 
introduced at the council. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 467 

A part of the proceedings of Friday, the last day of the 
council, bore resemblance to those of the preceding day. 
Jemmy Johnson resumed his preaching; at the close of which 
the corn dance was again performed, though with farmorespirit 
and enthusiasm than at the first. Double the numbers that 
then appeared, all hardy and sinewy men, attired in original 
and fantastic style, among whom was one of the chiefs of the 
confederacy, together with forty or fifty women of the differ- 
ent nations, now engaged, and for more than two hours per- 
severed in the performance of the various, complicated and 
fatiguing movements of this dance. The appearance of the 
dusky throng, with its increased numbers, and of course pro- 
portionably increased resources for the production of shrill 
whoops and noisy stamping, and for the exhibition of striking 
attitudes and rampant motions, was altogether strange, won- 
derful, and seemingly superhuman. 

After the dance had ceased, another kind of sport, a well 
contested foot race, claimed attention. In the evening, after 
another supper in the council house, the more social dances, 
the trotting, the fish, and one in which the women alone par- 
ticipated, were resumed. The fish dance seemed to be the 
favorite; and being invited to join it by one of the chiefs, 
we at once accepted the invitation, and followed in mirth- 
ful chase of pleasure, with a hundred forest children. Occa- 
sionally the dances are characterised with ebullitions of mer- 
riment and flashes of real fun; but generally a singular so- 
briety and decorum are observed. Frequently, when gazing 
at a throng of sixty or perhaps an hundred dancers, we have 
been scarcely able to decide which was the most remarkable, 
the staid and imperturbable gravity of the old men and women, 
or the complete absence of levity and frolicsomeness in the 
young. 

The social dances of the evening, with occasional speeches 
from the sachems and chiefs, were the final and concluding 
ceremonies of this singular but interesting aff'air. Saturday 



468 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

morning witnessed the separation of the various nations, and 
the departure of each to their respective homes. 

The writer would like to have said a word or two in rela- 
tion to the present condition and prospects of the Indians, 
but the original design, in regard to both the topics and 
brevity of this writing, having been already greatly trans- 
cended, it must be deferred. The once powerful confederacy 
of the Six Nations, occupying in its palmy days the greater 
portion of New York state, now number only a little over 
3,000.* Even this remnant will soon be gone. In view of 
this, as well as of the known fact that the Indian race is 
every where gradually diminishing in numbers, the writer 
cannot close without invoking for this unfortunate people, 
renewed kindliness, sympathy and benevolent attention. It 
is true that with some few exceptions, they possess habits 
and characteristics which render them difficult to approach; 
but still, they are only what the Creator of us all has made 
them. And, let it be remembered, it must be a large measure 
of kindliness and benevolence, that will repay the injustice 
and wrong that have been inflicted upon them. 



THE INDIAN FORT AT POMPEY. 

Agreeably to your request, (says Mr. J. V. H. Clark of 
Manlius, in a letter to the author), I have been upon the 
grounds in our vicinity once occupied as forts and places of 
defence. So devastatins; has been the hand of time and the 
works of civilized men, that little can now be possibly gleaned 
by observation. Our main reliance in these matters must 
depend almost entirely uj)on the recollections of early settlers 
and traditions. Many of these accounts, as you are aware, 
are differently related by different individuals, and not un- 
frequently in material points contradictory. A locality in 
the town of Cazenovia, Madison county, near the county 

• 3,753, vide preceding census, p. 32, et. seq. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 469 

line, and on lot 33, township of Porapey, Onondaga county, 
has been called the Indian Fort. It is about four miles south- 
easterly from Manlius village, situated on a slight eminence, 
which is nearly surrounded by a deep ravine, the banks of 
which are quite steep and somewhat rocky. The ravine is 
in shape like an ox-bow, made by two streams, which pass 
nearly around it and unite. Across this bow at the opening, 
was an earthen wall running southeast and northwest, and 
w^hen first noticed by the early settlers, w^as four or five feet 
high, straight, with something of a ditch in front, from two 
to three feet deep. Within this enclosure may be about ten 
or twelve acres of land. A part of this ground, when fust 
occupied in these latter times, was called the Prairie, and 
is noted now among the old men as the place where the 
first battalion militia training, was held in the county of 
Onondaga. But that portion near the wall, and in front 
of it, has recently, say five years ago, been cleared of a 
heavy growth of black oak timber. Many of the trees were 
large, and were probably one hundred and fifty or two 
hundred years old. Some were standing in the ditch, and 
others on the top of the embankment. There is a considera- 
ble burying place within the enclosure. The plough has al- 
ready done much towards leveling the wall and ditch; still 
they can be easily traced the whole extent. A few more 
ploughings and harrowings and no vestige of it will remain. 
The specimens of dark brown pottery I send with this are 
from this locality. I picked them up at this visit. These 
specimens are somewhat numerous upon this ground now. 
Almost every variety of Indian relic has been found about 
here, but so fastidious are the holders of them, that I have 
not been able to procure any for you, and cannot, except at 
a price. However, they can be of little consequence, as they 
are described in the article above referred to. One fact, will, 
I think, apply to this locality, that does not belong to any 
other of the kind in this region, that I know of. Two can- 
non balls, of about three pounds each, were found in the 



470 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

vicinity, showing that light cannon were used, either for de- 
fence, or in the reduction of this fortification. There is a 
large rock in the ravine on the south, on which are inscribed 
the following characters, thus, IIIllX, cut three-quarters of an 
inch broad, nine inches long, three quarters of an inch deep, 
perfectly regular, lines straight. Whether it was a work of 
fancy, or had significance, I know not. 

On the site of the village of Cazenovia, I am told there 
was a fort or embankment; some persons say it was round- 
ish; others that it was angular, with sides at right angles. 
Recollections respecting it are very imperfect. Many relics 
have been found here, indicating an earlier occupancy than 
those usually found in this county. This was on the Onei- 
da's territory. There is a singular coincidence in the loca- 
tion of these fortifications which I have never observed until 
ray recent visit. They are nearly all, if not quite all, situated 
on land rather elevated above that which is immediately con- 
tiguous, and surrounded, or partly so, by deep ravines, so that 
these form a part of the fortification themselves. At one of 
these (on the farm of David Williams, in Pompey), the banks 
on either side are found to contain bullets of lead, as if shot 
across at opposing forces. The space between maybe about 
three or four rods, and the natural cutting twenty or twenty- 
five feet deep. This only goes to show the care these archi- 
tects had in selecting; the most favorable situations for defence, 
and the fear and expectation they were in of attacks. 

I do not believe any of the fortifications in this neighbor- 
hood are more ancient than the period of the French settle- 
ment of missionaries among the Onondagas, during the early 
part of the seventeenth centuiy. But the more I investigate, 
the more I am convinced that there were many more of the 
French established here among the Indians, by far, than has 
been generally supposed, and their continuance with them 
longer. 

The nature of the articles found, utensils of farmers and 
mechanics, hoes, axes, horse shoes, hammers, &c., go to prove 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 471 

that agriculture was practised somewhat extensively, as well 
as the mechanic arts. The Indian name by which it was 
anciently called, and is now, by the natives, I think goes to 
substantiate this fact: Ote-que-sa/i'-e-eh, an open place, with 
much grass, an opening, or prairie. The timber has a vigo- 
rous growth, and although in many places large, there is a 
uniformity in the size and age, which shows that it has all 
grown up since the occupancy; because under the trees are 
not only found the relics, but among them in many instances, 
corn hills can be traced in rows at considerable distances. 

The presentation of medals, I believe to have been a very 
common custom among: the missionaries and traders. Several 
have been found. A valuable cross of pure gold, sold for 
$30, was found on the farm of Mr. David Hinsdale, west part 
of Porapey. The significant IHS was upon it. Brass cross- 
es are frequently found, and so are medals of the same metal. 
One recently found on the last named farm, about the size of 
a shilling piece. The figure of a Roman pontiflf in a stand- 
ing position, in his hand a crosier, surrounded with this in- 
scription, B. virg. sin. P. origi. con., which I have ventured 
to write out, Beata virgo sine peccato originuli concepfa; or 
as we might say in English, the blessed virgin conceived 
without original sin. On the other side was a representation 
of the brazen serpent, and two nearly naked figures, looking 
intently upon it. This is by far the most perfect one I have 
seen. The letters are as perfect as if struck but yesterday. 
It was undoubtedly compressed between dies. It is oval in 
shape, and bored, that it might be suspended from the neck. 
A silver medal was found near Eagle village, two miles east 
of this, about the size of a dollar, but a little thinner, with a 
ring or loop at one edge to admit a cord, by which it might 
be suspended. On one side appears in relief, a somewhat 
rude representation of a fortified town, with several tall steeples 
rising above its buildings, and a citadel, from which the Brit- 
ish flag is flying. A river broken by an island or two, occu- 
pies the foreground, and above, along the upper edge of the 



472 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

medal, is the name Montreal. The initials, D. C. F., proba- 
bly those of the manufacturer, are stamped below. On the 
opposite side, which was originally made blank, are engraved 
the words Canecya, Onondagas, which are doubtless the 
name and tribe of the red ruler, on whose dusky breast this 
ornament was displayed. A valuable token of friendship of 
some British governor of New York, or Canada, to an influ- 
ential ally among the Six Nations. There is no date on this, 
or any of the medals. But this must be at least older than 
the revolution, and probably an hundred snows at least, have 
fallen on the field where the plough disinterred it, since the 
chief whose name it has preserved, was laid to rest with his 
fathers. 

I have sent with this, such relics and Indian trinkets, as I 
could prevail upon our people here to part with. They are less 
than I expected to obtain. The gun lock, spear head, axe, 
piece of gun barrel, and lead ball, are all of the size and pat- 
terns usually found. They are from the farm of Mr. David 
Hinsdale, in the town of Porapey, west part. All the gun 
barrels, or parts of them, are found flattened similar to this. 
Not a perfect one has been found. The two parts of the axe, 
want about two inches between the broken portions to make 
the bit of the ordinary length. The stone axes, I thought 
might interest you. I have no doubt they were used in flay- 
ing animals slain in the chase, as well as in cleaving wood. 
I did intend to send you a beautiful gouge of hornblende, but 
to ray surprise, it is not to be found; the like are frequently 
found here. It proves conclusively, that the natives were at 
an early day acquainted with the virtues of the maple, and 
possessed the art of making sugar. I have sent, as you will 
see, fragments of pipes of many varieties. The patterns 
are as vai ious as the articles are numerous. The specimens 
of glass are different from any I have seen from any other 
quarter. I think some of the beads may have been used in 
rosaries, for the native proselytes. I have lately seen a frag- 
ment of a bell, which, when whole, would have weighed pro- 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 473 

bably two hundred pounds, the metal is very fine, and from 
appearance, this article must have been of considerable value; 
time and exposure has not changed it in the least. When 
found some twenty years since, it was broken up, and the 
pieces found, enough to make it nearly entire. 



MR. JAMES CUSICK, ON THE TUSCARORAS. 

It appears to me, says Mr. Cusick, very great difficulties 
are in the way of finding out and becoming acquainted with 
the discovery of all ancient traditions, and what original stock 
we came from. So far as our recollections extend, according 
to our traditions of many centuries, the aborigines who in- 
habited the vast wilderness in this great continent, now North 
America, were guided and led by a certain man, who stood 
highest in dignity, and next to the Supreme Being, who is 
called Tharonyawago, that is to say, being interpreted, the 
Holder of Heavens. He was the great leader of the red men, 
and he regulated and taught how to divide the country and 
rivers, and mode of their living, and manners of costume and 
ceremonies, in many centuries. The Tuscaroras were de- 
scended from the Iroquois; they emigrated from the Five Na- 
tions to the southern country in North Carolina, and when 
the Iroquois used to send expeditions and war parties to go 
to war with other Indian tribes in that quarter, these parties 
went to the Tuscarora towns in North Carolina, and found a 
resting place and refreshment, and they used to be in the habit 
of intermarriage with each other; they have never been to 
war against each other, and they were always on terms of 
good friendship and connexion. And therefore we considered 
that the Tuscarora nation belonged to the Six Nations from 
ancient times. Before the discovery by Columbus, the Tus- 
caioras consisted of six towns, and they were a most powerful 
nation, numbering more than twelve thousand warriors. But 
many combinations and causes fell upon the Tuscarora nation, 
and they became diminished in their numbers, by wars and 
61 



474 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

pestilence, and were poisoned by ardent spirits. The Tusca- 
roras had many years of enjoyment and peaceful possession on 
the Roanoke river, until the colony was planted near the set- 
tlement; something brought up disturbances, and their right 
was disputed to their territory. In 1712 the Indians of the 
Tuscaroras in North Carolina, with their accustomed secrecy, 
formed a design of exterminating in one night, the entire 
white population; the slaughter on the Roanoke was great; 
Capt. Barnwell appointed and sent troops, who suddenly at- 
tacked the Tuscaroras; he killed 300, and took 100 prison- 
ers; the survivors retreated to Tuscarora town, within a 
wooden breast-work, where at last they sued for peace. 

The Tuscaroras soon after abandoned their country, and 
united themselves with the Iroquois, and became the Sixth 
Nation. When we first came into this country, we lived 
with the Oneida nation, (now Oneida county,) and we cjlled 
the Oneidas the elder brother, the second is the Cayugas, the 
youngest brother Tuscaroras. 

When the first missionary was sent to the Tuscarora 
nation, 1807, Eld. Elkanah Holmes, from the New York Mis- 
sionary Society, labored several years with success, among 
them. This Mr. Holmes belonged to the Baptist Missionary 
Society. Afterwards, when Mr. Holmes was removed, another 
missionary was sent to the Tuscaroras by the American For- 
eign Mission, namely, the Rev. Mr. Grey, who remained until 
last war. After his dismissal in 1816, another missionary was 
sent by the Board of the New York Missionary Society, the 
Rev. James C. Crane. I will state briefly those missionaries 
who afterwards came to the Tuscaroras; Rev. B. Lane, Rev. 
John Elliot, Rev. Joel W^ood, Rev. Mr. Williams; the last, 
who is now missionary, was the Rev. Gilbert Rockwood. In 
1336, a portion of the Tuscarora nation thought expedient to 
become Baptists, according to the dictates of their own con- 
science, and free enjoyment of their religion in this republi- 
can government. And consequently a Baptist church was 
built and organized among the Tuscaroras; and they were 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 475 

called in council with several Baptist churches in this county. 
In 1S3S, they were admitted into the Niagara Baptist Asso- 
ciation at Shelby, and have now in good standing fifty mem- 
bers of the church. In a ministerial council, June 14th, 1838, 
Mr. James Cusick was examined touching his Christian ex- 
perience, and called to preach the gospel by Providence and 
the council; they decided on that question, and gave him or- 
dination as a native preacher, deciding that he was well 
qualified by a knowledge of theology. And now he has la- 
bored with several tribes among the Six Nations. Under his 
instrumentality, three Baptist churches have been formed, 
numbering 200 members, and he established a temperance so- 
ciety in 1830 of more than 100 members. In 1845 he es- 
tablished another temperance society among the Indians, num- 
bering 50 members. Intemperance is one of the greatest and 
most destructive evils, and many more begin to be intempe- 
rate, especially among the young men. Among the females 
of the Tuscarora nation there is more virtue and sobriety and 
good morals than among the males. I hope the w^hite citi- 
zens will try to assist them and promote the melioration of 
the Indian condition, in order to qualify him for life, and lead 
him to appreciate its true end, and to encourage intermarriages 
in their future generations, and to advance in civilization, 
Christianity and industry. 

At the Rev. Mr. Vrooman's, in Queenston, you will find a 
copy of my late brother David's book on the Indians. 



DAVID CUSICK'S BOOK. 

The following extracts are made from the curious publica- 
tion referred to, in the preceding letter. It appears to have 
been first printed at Lewiston, in 1825. As the work of a 
full blooded Indian, of the Tuscarora tribe, it is remarkable. 
In making these extracts, no correction of the style, or gram- 
mar is made, these being deemed a part of the evidence of 
the authenticity of the traditions recorded. 



476 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Jlccount of the Settlement of JYorth America. — In the an- 
cient days the Great Island appeared upon the big waters, the 
earth brought forth trees, herbs, vegetables, &c. The creation 
of the land animals: the Eagwehoewe people were too created 
and resided in the north regions; and after a time some of 
the people became giants, and committed outrages upon the 
inhabitants, &c. 

Ancient Shipwreck. — After many years a body of Eagwe- 
hoewe people encamped on the bank of a majestic stream, 
and was named Kanawage, now the St. Lawrence. After a 
long time a number of foreign people sailed from a port un- 
known; but unfortunately, before they reached their destina- 
tion the winds drove them contrary; at length their ship 
wrecked somewhere on the southern part of the Great Island, 
and many of the crew^s perished; a few active persons were 
saved; they obtained some implements, and each of them was 
covered w^ith a leather bag, the big hawks carried them on 
the summit of a mountain and remained there but a short 
time. The hawks seemed to threaten them, and were com- 
pelled to leave the mountain. They immediately selected 
a place for residence and built a small fortification in order 
to provide against the attacks of furious beasts; if there 
should be any made. After many years the foreign people 
became numerous, and extended their settlements; but after- 
wards they w-ere destroyed by the monsters that overrun the 
country. 

Origin of the Five JVations. — By some inducement a body 
of people was concealed in the mountain at the falls named 
Kufikehscnvkich, (now Oswego). When the people were re- 
leased from the mountain they were visited by Tarenyaica- 
gon, that is, the Holder of the Heavens, who had power to 
change himself into various shapes; he ordered the people to 
proceed towards the sunrise, as he guided them and came to 
a river and named Yenonanatche, that is, going round a moun- 
tain (now Mohawk), and went down the bank of the river 
and came to where it dischai-ges into a great river running 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 477 

towards the midday sun; and named Shaw-nay-taw-ty, that 
is, beyond the Pineries, (now Hudson), and went down the 
bank of the river and touched the bank of a great water. 
The company made encampment at the place and remained 
there a few days. The people were yet in one language; 
some of the people went on the banks of the great water 
towards the midday sun; but the main cbmpany returned as 
they came, on the bank of the river, under the direction of 
the Holder of the Heavens. Of this company there was a 
particular body which called themselves one household; of 
these were six families and they entered into a resolution to 
preserve the chain of alliance which should not be extin- 
guished in any manner. 

The company advanced some distance up the river of 
Shaw-na-taw-ty (Hudson), the Holder of the Heavens directs 
the first family to make their residence near the bank of the 
river, and the family was named Te-haw-re-ho-geh, that is, a 
speech divided (now Mohawk), and their language was soon 
altered; the company then turned and went towards the sun- 
setting and travelled about two days and a half, and come to 
a creek* which was named Kaw-na-taw-te-ruh, that is. Pine- 
ries. The second family was directed to make their resi- 
dence near the creek, and the family was named jYe-haw-re- 
tah-go, that is, Big Tree, now Oneidas, and likewise their 
language was altered. The company continued to proceed 
towards the sunsetting under the direction of the Holder of 
the Heavens. The third family was directed to make their 
residence on a mountain named Onondaga (now Onondaga), 
and the family was named Seuh-now-kah-tah, that is, carry- 
ing the name and their language was altered. The company 
continued their journey towards the sunsetting. The fourth 
family w^as directed to make their residence near a long lake 
named Go-yo-goh, that is, a mountain rising from water 
(now Cayuga), and the family was named Sho-nea-na-we-to- 

* The creek now branches of the Susquehanna river at the head gene- 
rally called Col. Allen's lake, ten miles south of the Oneida Castle. 



478 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

loah, that is, a great pipe, their language was aUered. The 
company continued to proceed towards the sunsetting. The 
fifth family was directed to make their residence near a high 
mountain, or rather nole, situated south of the Canandaigua 
lake, which was named Jenneatowake, and the family was 
named Te-how-nea-nyo-hent, that is, Possessing a Door, now 
Seneca, and their language was altered. The sixth family 
went with the company that journeyed towards the sunsetting, 
and touched the bank of a great lake, and named Kau-ha- 
gwa-rah-ka, that is; a Cat, now Erie, and then went towards 
between the midday and sunsetting, and travelled considera- 
ble distance, and came to a large river which was named 
Ouau-we-yo-ka, that is, a principal stream, now Mississippi; 
the people discovered a grape vine lying across the river by 
which a part of the people went over, but while they were 
engaged, the vine broke and were divided, they became ene- 
mies to those that went over the river; in consequence they 
were obliged to disperse the journey. The Holder of the 
Heavens instructs them in the art of bows and arrows in the 
time of game and danger. Associates were dispersed and 
each family went to search for residences according to their 
conveniences of game. The sixth family went towards the 
sunrise and touched the bank of the great water. The family 
was directed to make their residence near Cau-ta-noh, that 
is, pine in water, situated near the mouth of Nuse river, 
now in North Carolina, and the family was named Kau-ta- 
noh, now Tuscarora, and their language was also altered; 
but the six families did not go so far as to lose the under- 
*standing of each other's language. The Holder of the Hea- 
vens returns to the five families and forms the mode of con- 
federacy, which was named Ggo-nea-seab-neh, that is, a long 
house, to which are: 1st. Tea-kaw-reh-ho-gefi; 2d. jYew- 
haw-teh-fah-go; 3d. Senh-nau-ka-ta; 4th. Sho-nea-na-we- 
to-wah; 5th. Te-hoo-nea-nyo-hent. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 479 



ANCIENT WORK ON FORT HILL, AUBURN. 

This enclosure, Mr. James H. Bostwick informs me, is situ- 
ate on the highest point of land in the vicinity of Auburn, 
and is in the form of an ellipsis; and measures in diameter, 
from east to west, (from the outside of the base of the em- 
bankment,) four hundred and sixteen feet, and from north to 
south, three hundred and ten feet; the circumference, twelve 
hundred feet; present height of the highest part of the em- 
bankment on the west side, from the bottom of the ditch, four 
feet; the thickness at the base, fourteen feet; from the centre 
of the enclosure the ground has a gentle slope to the north, 
east, and west, and is nearly level towards the south. The 
openings on the south, one of sixty, and the other of seventy- 
eight feet, are directly opposite or against deep ravines, sepa- 
rated by a narrow steep ridge, access through which would 
be difficult, being on an angle of nearly forty-five degrees. 
The opening on the north measures one hundred and sixty- 
six feet, opposite to which, the ground continues to slope to 
the north for the distance of seventy feet, from which point 
the descent is very abrupt. The opening on the east measures 
sixty-six feet, opposite to which, the ground continues on a 
gentle descent to the east for several hundred feet. The 
opening on the southwest measures fifty feet, and is opposite 
to a ridge gently descending to the southwest. There are no 
less than ten deep ravines, and as many steep ridges surround- 
ing and leading to this ancient fortification. 

McAuley in his History of the State of New York, vol. 2d, 
pages 111 and 112, gives a minute and interesting descrip- 
tion of this fortification, which, however, contains some inac- 
curacies; and also of another fortification, situate in the north- 
east part of Auburn. The large chestnut stump described by 
him as standing in the moat on the west side of the enclosure, 
is still to be seen; there are still to be seen the remains of 
two large oak stumps, which seem to have escaped liis notice, 
situate on the southeast side of the enclosure; one of them on 



4S0 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the top of the embankment, and the other in the ditch, some 
twelve feet distant. There are scarcely any traces remaining 
of the fortification described by McAuley as being in the 
northeast part of Auburn, from the fact that the ground upon 
which it stood has been under cultivation for many years. 
(See page 192, et. seq.) 

ACCOUNT OF FORT HILL, LE ROY. 

The following letter is from Frederick Follet, Esq., of 
Batavia, who visited the ancient fortification he describes, in 
the fall of 1845. 

The ground known as Fort hill, is situated about three 
miles north of the village of Le Roy, and ten or twelve miles 
northeast from Batavia, the capital of Genesee county. The 
better view of Fort hill, is had to the north of it, about a 
quarter of a mile, on the road leading from Bergen to Le 
Roy. From this point of observation it needs little aid of 
the imagination to conceive that it was erected as a fortifica- 
tion by a large and powerful army, looking for a permanent 
and almost inaccessible bulwark of defence. From the cen- 
tre of the hill, in the northwesterly course, the country lies 
quite flat — immediately north, and inclining to the east, the 
land is also level for one hundred rods, when it rises nearly 
as high as the hill, and continues for several miles quite ele- 
vated. In approaching the hill from the north it stands very 
prominently before you, rising rather abruptly, though not 
perpendicularly, to the height of eighty or ninety feet, ex- 
tending about forty rods on a line east and w^est, the corners 
being round or truncated, and continuing to the south on the 
west side for some sixty rods, and on the east side for about 
half a mile, maintaining about the same elevation at tiie sides 
as in front; beyond which distance the line of the hill is that 
of the land around. 

Fort hill, however, is not a work of art. The geological 
character of it shows it to be the result of natural causes. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 481 

Nevertheless, there are undoubted evidences of its once having 
been resorted to as a fortification, and of its having consti- 
tuted a valuable point of defence to a rude and half civilized 
people. 

It is probable that at a period of time very far distant, the 
ground about Fort hill was, for some considerable distance 
around, entirely of the same level, and that by the action of 
water, a change took place, which brought about the present 
condition. The low land immediately in front to the north, 
is only the remains of a water course, which was made up of 
a stream coming down the gorge of the west side, and the 
present Allen's creek, which flows through a portion of the 
gorge of the east side, the stream of the west having been 
a branch of that of the east side. Through the west gorge 
now flows, in a wet season, a moderate stream, coming from 
the lands above the gorge, and having an interrupted fall of 
some forty or fifty feet; while Allen's creek occupies a por- 
tion of the eastern gorge, much bioader, at the extremity of 
which, some half a mile from the hill, there is a beautiful fall 
of eighty feet perpendicularly. The structure of the hill bears 
out this construction; it being composed of the same rock — 
with the exception of the upper strata — as the falls. At the 
falls the upper strata of rock, and that which foi-ms the bed 
of the creek for some two miles or more east, is the cornife- 
rous limestone; underlaying which aie hydraulic and Onon- 
daga limestones. The two latter are only seen at Fort hill, 
covered by a few feet of soil and several small masses of stone, 
a part out of place, among which are a few of Medina sand- 
stone. The strata are, therefore, continuous from the falls, 
and at some former periods, extended over the gorges, and 
formed a regular and nearly level surface, the action of water 
having removed, which has left the broad and conspicuous 
point of Fort hill, as memorable monuments of the earlier 
condition of the country. 

When Fort hill was used as a fortification, the summit was 
entrenched. Forty years ago, an entrenchment ten feet deep 
62 



482 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

and some twelve or fifteen wide, extended from the west to 
the east end, along the north or front part, and continued up 
each side about twenty rods, where it crossed over, and join- 
ing, made the circuit of entrenchment complete. At this day, 
a portion of this entrenchment is easily perceived for fifteen 
rods along the extreme w^estern half of the north or front part, 
the cultivation of the soil, with other causes, having nearly 
obliterated all other portions. It would seem that this forti- 
fication was arranged more for protection agaiiist invasion 
from the north, than from any other quarter, this direction 
evidently being its most commanding position. Near the 
northwest corner have, at different times, been found collec- 
tions of rounded stones, of hard consistence, which are sup- 
posed to have been used as weapons of defence by the be- 
sieged against the besiegers. 

Arrow heads, made of flint or horn stone, gouges, pestles, 
hatchets, and other weapons formed from stone, have been 
found about the hill, and throughout this section. Of the 
rarer articles, are pipes and beads, a few of the latter of which 
I have been able to obtain. The gouges, pestles, and hatch- 
ets, are, I think, frequently made of compact limestone, pro- 
bably what is now known in Mr. Hall's State Report, as the 
one foot limestone at Le Roy, though many of them seem to 
be formed of primitive rock, and very likely were worked out 
from boulders scattered about the country. 

Skeletons found about Fort hill and its vicinity, sustain the 
impression that the former occupants of this military station, 
were of a larger and more powerful race of men than our- 
selves. I learned that the skeletons generally indicated a 
stouter and larger frame. A humerus or shoulder bone, of 
which one has been preserved, may safely be said to be one- 
third larger or stouter than any now swung by the living. A 
resident of Batavia, Thomas T. Everett, M. D., has in his 
cabinet, a portion of a lower jaw bone, full one-third larger 
than any possessed by the present race of men, which was 
found in a lull near Le Roy, some two years since. From 



I 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 483 

the same hill, arrow heads and other articles have been re- 
moved for many years. 

The articles I send you are as follows: No. 1, an Indian 
gouge, made of very hard stone, found at Fort hill; No. 2, 
is a stone tomahawk, presented to me by Jerome A. Clark, 
Esq., of this village, found on his premises half a mile south 
of this place; No. 3, arrows heads, of flint; No. 4, beads; 
No. 5, a bead, evidently formed from a tooth, as the enamel 
and other distinctive marks indicate; No. 6, a bead, appa- 
rently of bone. 

The following paper is from the Rev. C. Dewey of Ro- 
chester, on the same subject: 

This is celebrated as being the remains of some ancient 
work, and was supposed to have been a fort. Though the 
name is pronounced as if hill was the name of some indi- 
vidual, yet the place is a fort on a hill, in the loose use of the 
word. The name designates the place as jPor^-hill, to dis- 
tinguish it from the hills which have no fort on them. 
Neither is it a hill, except as you rise from the swale on the 
north, for it is lower than the land to which it naturally be- 
longs. 

As you pass towards Fort hill in the road from Le Roy vil- 
lage, which is about three miles to the south, you descend a 
little most of the distance to this place. The road passes a 
little west of the middle of the space nearly north and south. 

The shape is quadrangular, and is shown in the diagram 
or ground plot. On the right and east side is the deep water 
course of Allen's creek, cut down through the rocks for a mile 
or more, perhaps one hundred and thirty feet deep; on the 
north is that of Fordham's brook, of nearly the same depth, 
which drains a wide swale from the north and northwest; 
and on the west is a short and deep ravine, which is a water 
course in some seasons of the year, where the waters fall over 
a precipice a litte south of the quadrangular space, or fortifi- 
cation. This ravine is not so deep as the water courses on the 
east and north. The descent is quite steep on these three 



484 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

sides. At the northeast Allen's creek turns to the east and 
receives the waters from Fordham's biook. 

The quadrangular space, D, A, B, C, (see plate, p. 199) was 
enclosed by a trench, D, A, nearly a north line on the east, 
bj A B on the north, and B C on the w^est. 

A B is the north trench about sixty rods long, and nearly 
east and west. A D is about thirty rods, and B C is fifteen 
rods, and terminates at the ravine at C. The trench D A, 
and A B, lies on the brow of the descent to the streams be- 
low. At D the bend of the ravine stops the trench. At the 
northwest corner B, a trench is continued about 15° to the 
right and down the declivity 15 rods to a spring; fifty feet 
perhaps below A B, and B G, is the brow of the descent west 
of the trench at B, and G C is the edge of the ravine on the 
west. Q W is Allen's creek on the east; H I K is Ford- 
ham's brook on the north, and L P M is the water course on 
the west to the precipice at M, over which the water falls at 
some seasons, and the surface at M is only a few feet lower 
than the general level of the quadrangle. The space F was 
a burying ground, as bones, skulls, pipes, beads, have been 
ploughed up there. The road R N passes through the mid- 
dle nearly of the space enclosed by the trench, and at N turns 
to the right to descend to the flat below; but formerly the 
road turned to the right at U, and passed down at the right of 
the trench at D to T. 

The place was pointed out to me by H. M. Ward, Esq., 
who was familiar with it when it was covered with the forest. 
He states that the trench must have been eight to ten feet 
deep and as many wide; that the earth was thrown either 
way, but much of it inwards; that the forest trees were stand- 
ing in the trench and on the sides of it, and of the same appa- 
rent age and magnitude as on the ground generally; that the 
heart-wood of black cherry trees of large size was scattered 
over the ground, evidently the remains of a forest anterior to 
the then growth of maple and beech, and that this black cher- 
ry was used by the settlers for timber; that the road, when 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 485 

first made, crossed the trench at N by a bridge ; that the 
trench at D and A was cut down the bank a few feet, or else 
in time water had worn a passage from the trench down- 
W'ards; that there was no tradition heard of among the In- 
dians of the country, in respect to the use or design of the 
work. 

The underlying rock is the hydraulic limestone of this sec- 
tion, which is fully exposed at the falls of Allen's creek, half 
a mile south of Fort hill. This rock was struck in digging 
the trench on the north line in some places, and portions of it 
were thrown out with the earth. 

Of the pipes found at F, one was formed from granular 
limestone; one was of baked clay, in the form of the rude 
outlines of a man's head and face, nose, eyes, &c., and it re- 
minds one of the figures in some of Stephens' plates of the 
ruins of Palenque. It has the hollows for the ears to be 
fastened on, and shows no little effort. The top of the head 
is surrounded by a fillet or wreath, and behind are two more 
fillets. At the bottom of the neck is a similar ornament, and 
on the front is another below it. This is the most curious. 
(See p. 204, et seq.) 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS STATE OF THE TUS- 
CARORAS. 

The Rev. Gilbert Rockwood writes as follows: 

This mission was commenced about fifty years since, un- 
der the care of the New York Mission Society. It was trans- 
ferred to the United Foreign Missionary Society, in 1821, 
and to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
Missions, in 1826. 

The church was organized in 1805, with five persons. 
The whole number of native members who have united since 
its organization is one hundred and twenty-three. The pre- 
sent number of native members is fifty-three; others five, 
total fifty-eight. 

Between July 1st, 1844, and July 1st, 1845, there were 



486 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

only three admissions, two by profession and one by letter. 
About one-third of the population attend meeting on the 
sabbath. Their meeting house was built by themselves, with 
a little assistance from abroad. 

They have also a school house, the expense of M'hich was 
nearly all defrayed by themselves. There is but one school 
among them, which is kept the year through, with the excep- 
tion of the vacations. The teacher is appointed by the Ameri- 
can Board. The number of scholars the past year, is not far 
fiom fifty. 

I have been among these Indians now nearly eight years. I 
can see that there has been an advance, both in their moral 
and physical condition. 

It is within the memory of many now living among them, 
when drunkenness was almost universal; now, comparatively, 
few are intemperate. A majority of the chiefs, are decidedly 
temperance men, and exert a salutary influence. They have 
a temperance society, and hold frequent meetings. They ut- 
terly forbid the traffic in intoxicating drinks on their own soil. 

The marriage relation is being better understood by them, 
and more appreciated. More of the young men and women, 
enter into the marriage relation, in the regular Christian way, 
than a few years ago. Four couple have been regularly mar- 
ried the past year. Number of deaths, eight; an unusual 
number since I have been among them. 

There is besides the church, above referred to, a Baptist 
church, organized a few years since, the particulars of which, 
I am unable to give. For any information you may wish re- 
specting it, I would refer you to James Cusick their minister. 

On the whole, there is much to encourage the philanthro- 
pist and the Christian in labors for the good and well being 
of the Indians here, although we meet with many obstacles 
and difficulties in the way. 

They are becoming more and more industrious in their 
habits, as the appearance of their farms, and the amount of 
produce, and their personal appearance, will testify. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 487 

TUSCARORA VOCABULARY. 

Man lives. Euh qiieh, yah kenh hek 'gh. 

God exists. Ya wunh ne yuh, yah kenh hek 'gh. 

Fishes swim. Kenk chinh, keuh hoh nuk, wah nah wuhn's. 

Birds fly. Che nunh, keuh hoh neuh, na yuh nunh hah n'yeh. 

A fish swims. Skenh che aht, wah nah wuhn's. 

ji bird flies. Skah che nunh e'shrah. 

One man. Enh che, a ne hah. 

Twenty men. Na wah th'sunh, kah ya ne hah. 

A little man. Renh thras s'tenh, a ne hah. 

A little dog. A re's. 

A good man. Renh kweh, strah kwah'st. 

A bad man. Renh kweh, struh k'senh. 

A good bow. Wah nah kwah'st. 

A bad bow. Wah nah k'senh. 

Good. Kah re whah ya nih. 

Evil. Kah re whah k'senh. 

Blessedness. Kah yenh wah nunk. 

Mankind. En noo keuh'f. 

The world. Wah'f nah kwa kenh. 

There is nothing answering to the infinitive and participle. 
I have therefore used the present indicative in the transla- 
tion. I have divided the words into syllables, whether they 
are simple or compound. Where two or more words occur 
in the translation of a phrase, I have separated them by a 
comma. I have used the English alphabet with natural 
powers so far as Tuscarora sounds could be indicated by 
them. It is impossible to give, in many cases, a correct 
sound. A alone, has the sound of a in hate. Ah, like our 
interjection ah. The sound I intend to indicate by sunh, 
keuh, heuh, would be given, very nearly, by the Seneca al- 
phabet used by Mr. Wright, thus, sah, kah, or kah, ha. The 
emphasis is, almost invariably, on the penultimate. Often a 
slight emphasis on some others. There is also often a pro- 
longation of sound not indicated by any mark, as I supposed 
you would not need it. 



488 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

Nicholas Cusick, the father of James and David, was 
about eighly-two when he died. I have not been ?ble to 
learn where he was born. He died at this place October, 
1840. I do not know that there was any thing very peculiar 
about him. He never was a " priest or juggler in his earlier 
days," that I can learn. 

Inquiries. — There are several words in your vocabulary of 
the Tuscarora, in which the sound of/" is used, always, 
however, as a terminal sound, as in eh-noo-keuli'f, mankind. 
Is this to be understood as denoting the ordinary sound of the 
letter? Does it occur in other positions in words? What is 
to be understood by the comma, which is invariably put be- 
fore it? 

Mr. Rockwood's Reply. — In reference to the vocabulary 
of Indian words we furnished you, I have further to re- 
mark, that the languao;e having never been reduced to 
writing, each individual undertaking to reduce any portion 
of it, will have a system in part, at least, of his own. I 
have tried three different ways myself. It is difficult, if 
not impossible, to represent all the Tuscarora sounds by any 
combination of the English alphabet. I presume a stranger 
to the language would not, with the use of the vocabulary 
we have furnished you, give the correct sound in many in- 
stances. 

The letter y terminating a word, has the sound of y in 
chief. I do not know as the comma before it, as in the word 
eh-noo-kevli'f, is of any use. In common conversation, or at 
any time when they speak rapidly, the sound o{ f is not dis- 
tinguished, as a general thing. Yet when they speak a word 
entire, there is this/" sound, slowly and distinctly; it seems 
to be a distinct sound, or very nearly so. It appears to be a 
little separated from the main part of the syllable, as though 
another syllable was to follow immediately beginning with^; 
but as soon as the sound of y, as in find, is given, the person 
stops short. Thus instead of ek-noo-keuh find, (I use the 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 489 

English -word find, because the power ofy in this word is the 
power^fDf the letter intended in the Indian word given,) we 
say eh-noo-keuhf, breaking off when you have given the sound 
of y, without proceeding to give the sound of ind. Perhaps 
if a comma is used at all, it would be more proper to place it 
after the/", thus/"' or the^ might join the syllable thus, keuhf. 

I do not recollect that the sound of/" is heard in any other 
part of a word than as a terminating sound. 

Sometimes an r occurs separated, you will observe, by a 
comma from the rest of the syllable. It matters not much 
whether the r is joined to the preceding or following sylla- 
ble. There is the sound of an r between them when the 
word is spoken. I have been puzzled to know where to 
place it. It seems to answer either way. Thus, in the 
word for to-morrow, euk-ytih'r-heuh, or euh-yidi' -rheuh. If 
joined to the syllable yuh, without being separated by the 
comma, you would pronounce it very nearly like the English 
word your. As it is, thus, yuli'r, its sound is very nearly like 
the English word use, and I am not sure but that would be a 
preferable way of writing it, thus, euh-use-hetih; yet there is 
a twirl or r sound you do not get as in the other mode of 
writing it. Terminating in r, a word has much the same 
sound. 

Instead of using the word find above, I might have used 
any other word beginning with^. It has its ordinary sound. 



THE SENEGAS OF CATTARAUGUS. 

The following facts were communicated by the Rev. Asher 
Bliss, of the Cattaraugus Mission: 

Agreeably to your request I forward you some facts in re- 
gard to the establishment and progress of the gospel among 
the natives of this reservation. The Cattaraugus Mission 
Church was organized July 8th, 1827, (which is a little more 
than eighteen years). It consisted of Mr. Wm. A. Thayer, 
(53 



490 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

the teacher, his wife, and twelve native members. There 
have been additions to it from time to time, until the whole 
number who have held a connection with this church is one 
hundred and eighteen. Thirteen of these have been white 
persons and most of them connected with the mission family. 
Of the one hundred and five native members, seven or eight 
have come by letter from other reservations, so that the num- 
ber who have united on profession of faith is a little short of 
one hundred. Twenty-five of these have gone to their final 
account. Some have died in the triumphs of faith, and we 
humbly hope and trust that they are among the blessed, in the 
kingdom of our common Father. A number (as it was na- 
tural to expect from converts out of heathenish darkness), 
have apostatized from Christianity, and returned to their 
former courses. The proportion of these is not probably more 
than one in ten. Between sixty and seventy are now con- 
nected with some of the mission churches. A few only have 
removed to Alleghany, Tuscarora, while the remainder still 
live on this reservation. 

The effect of the gospel in promoting morality and civil- 
ization, may be learned in part from the fact that the public 
worship of God has been steadily maintained ever since the 
organization of the church, with members ranging from fifty 
to one hunrdied, and sometimes one hundred and fifty and 
two hundred, as regular hearers of the word. A sabbath 
school has been sustained a considerable share of the time. 
Many copies of the Holy Scriptures, and the New Testament, 
together with tracts, sabbath school books, temperance papers, 
and religious periodicals, have been circulated amongthe child- 
ren and youth. Temperance societies have been patronized 
by nearly all the chiefs and leading men on the reservation. 
Pledges have been circulated, and received the signatures of 
a large majority of the population, of all parties, on the 
Washingtonian plan. 

Day schools for teaching the English language have been 
kept in operation almost witlu^nl interrui)lion for more than 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 491 

twenty years, under the patronage of the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 

During the thirteen years that I have superintended these 
schools, nearly thirty different persons have engaged for a longer 
or shorter time, as teachers. For the past year there have 
been four schools under the patronage of the American Board, 
and one under the Society of Friends. The whole number 
who have been instructed in the five schools is probably not 
far from one hundred and twenty-five. The attendance of a 
part has been very irregular, sometimes shifting from one 
school to another, and sometimes attending no school at all. 
Several of the early pupils in the mission schools are now 
heads of families, well informed, industrious, temperate and 
religious, and in good circumstances. Some are interpreters, 
some teachers of schools, and others engaged in transacting 
the business of the nation. 

You can, sir, best judge of the influence of the gospel in 
promoting worldly prosperity, when you have fully completed 
the census which is now being taken. When you count up 
the framed houses and barns, the horses, cattle, sheep and 
hogs, the acres of improved land, with the wagons, buggies 
and sleighs, clocks and watches, and the various productions 
of agriculture, you can easily conceive the difference between 
the present, and thirty years ago. I suppose there was not 
then a framed building of any description, and scarcely a log 
house, properly so called; no teams, no roads, no ploughed 
land, and but small patches of corn, beans and squashes. 
What an astonishing change! 

As to the capacity of Indian children for improvement, my 
own impression is that there is no essential difference between 
them and white children. The fact that Indian children usu- 
ally make slow progess in studying English books, can be ac- 
counted for in three ways: 1. They generally have little or 
no assistance from their parents at home; 2. They arc irre- 
gular in their attendance on schools, for want of order and 
discipline on the part of parents; 3. Being ignorant of the 



492 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

English language, it is a long time before they comprehend 
fully the instruction of their teachers. 

These circumstances operate to make the school room a 
very dull and uninteresting place to the scholar, and the reflex 
influence gives the scholar the same appearance. When they 
can once rise above these circumstances, and overcome these 
obstacles, they make good proficiency in their studies. 



THE SENEGAS OF ALLEGHANY. 

Rev. William Hall, of the Alleghany mission, writes: 

Your inquiries in relation to the state of religion, educa- 
tion, &c., among the Indians of this reservation, if I rightly 
understand them, are briefly answered as follows: 

Christianity very much prospered here during the four 
years next preceding that of 1845. The number of church 
members during that period, was nearly tripled, and very en- 
courao-ino; additions were made to their knowledge and zeal. 
But the past year has been one of stupidity and drought. 
There have, however, been four additions from the Indians, 
made to the church, by profession of faith, and two whites. 

The present number of Indian members, is about one hun- 
dred and fifteen. The number of whites is eight. Seven of 
the Indian members are under censure. 

I have sustained three schools during the past summer, in 
which about eighty Indian children have been more or less 
taught. One of these schools, whose whole number is only 
about thirty, gives an average attendance of nearly twenty- 
five. In this neighborhood the population is suflSciently com- 
pact for a farming community, and the younger parents are 
partially educated. 

In the other neighborhoods, the population is very sparse, 
and the parents very ignorant. The consequence is, that the 
daily attendance falls short of one-half the whole number of 
scholars, and cannot be called regular at that. Many do not 
get to school earlier than half past eleven, and very few ear- 



ORIGINAL NOTES 493 

lier than ten, and half past ten. Those who attend regularly, 
evince a capacity to acquire knowledge, equaling the whites, 
and one of our schools will suffer nothing, in comparison with 
common country schools. 

MOHAWK AND CAYUGA VOCABULARIES. 

Letter from Rev. Wm. McMurray, communicating Mr. 
Elliot's vocabularies of the Mohawk and Cayuga: 

I have just received the vocabularies, with the Indian words, 
from the Rev. Adam Elliot, of Tuscarora, to whom I sent 
them for the translation. The cause of the delay, was his 
severe illness, and the difficulty of getting suitable persons 
to give him the Indian. 

STATISTICS or THE ONEIDAS. 

The following letter was received from Mr. Richard U. 
Shearman, communicating the Oneida vocabulary. 

I completed the enumeration of the Oneida Indians some 
days ago, but delayed sending a return to you to ascertain 
the Indian names. Several families are included in the 
marshal's enumeration of the inhabitants of the town of Ver- 
non. The remainder reside in Madison county. 

The houses of these Indians are generally much better than 
the log houses of the whites, being constructed of hewn, even 
jointed logs, with shingle roofs and good windows. There 
are three good frame houses belonging to them; one of these 
is a very handsome one, belonging to Skenado. I noticed in 
it some tasty fringed window curtains and good carpets. 
The Indians whom you met at Oneida were the Jlower of the 
tribe, being mostly farmers, who raise a sufficiency of pro- 
duce for their comfortable support. There are several heads 
of families in my list, who cultivate no land of their own, 
but gain a subsistence by chopping wood and performing 
farm labor for others. 



494 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

The whole number of families, I make, as you will per- 
ceive, 31. The whole number of houses I believe is but 28, 
but in each of these houses I found two families. The num- 
ber of persons is 157. The count of last winter, which made 
180 souls, was made with reference to retaining a certain 
amount of missionary funds, and Mr. Stafford, the Indian 
attorney, tells me it w^as made too high. Skenado says the 
tribe in this state numbers just 200 souls, of whom 40 are 
with the Onondao^as. 

I have filled up your Indian vocabulary to-day. I wrote 
down the words as they were given to me by one Johnson, 
a pretty intelligent man, who sometimes acts as interpreter. 
My orthography may be somewhat at fault, owing to my 
limited knowledge of the Indian manner of sounding the let- 
ters of the English alphabet. In general, I have endeavored 
to spell the words according to their sound in English, though 
the letter a is used often as in the English, and often to ex- 
press the sound of ah ! With this exception, and the use of 
hon, han and hun, to express a sound of which nothing in 
the English can convey an accurate impression, the spelling 
accords with the pronunciation. The Indian from whom I 
obtained the information informs me he knows of no words 
in his language to express such large numbers as thousands 
and millions. I have, therefore, in the cases of those num- 
bers, filled the blanks with the Indian for ten hundred and 
ten hundred thousand; that is, in the latter case, ten hundred 
ten hundreds, 

I hope the table will be satisfactory, and that it may aid 
you in making the comparison between the languages which 
you desire. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 495 



IROQUOIS LAWS OF DESCENT. 

L. Morgan, Esq., in a letter, dated Rochester, Oct. 7, 1845, 
furnishes the following particulars on this subject: 

You have doubtless seen a notice of the great council of 
the Six Nations, recently held at Tonawanda. We call 
it great because we never saw any thing of the kind be- 
fore, and perhaps never will again. Three of us started in 
season, and spent the whole of last week in attendance, and 
w^ere also joined by Mr. Hurd, a delegate from Cayuga. We 
were there before the council opened, and left after the fire 
was raked up. Our budget of information is large, and over- 
throws some of 'our past knowledge, and on the whole, en- 
larges our ideas of the vastness and complexity of this Indian 
fabric. We are a great way from the bottom yet; we may 
never reach it, but what we do bring up to the surface, re- 
munerates richly for the search. 

We learn that at the establishment of the Confederacy, 
fifty sachemships were founded, and a name assigned to each, 
which they are still known by, and which names every sa- 
chem of the several sachemdoms, from the beginning to the 
present time has borne. There were also fifty sub-sachems, 
or aids; that is, to every sachem was given a sub-sachem to 
stand behind him — in a word to do his bidding. These sa- 
chemships are still confined to the Five Nations; the Tusca- 
roras were never permitted to have any. They are unequally 
divided among the Five Nations, the Onondagas having as 
many as fourteen. The eight original tribes or families still 
hold to be correct as we had it, but each tribe did not have 
a sachem. In some of the tribes were two or three, in others 
none. As the English would say the Howard family had a 
peerage in it, so would the Indians say that a certain tribe or 
clan had one or two or no sachemships running in it. The 
idea seems to be that the sachem did not preside over a tribe 
as that would leave some tribes destitute; but the nine Oneida 
sachems, for instance, ruled the Oneida nation conjointly, and 



496 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

when the nations met in council, would represent it. The 
fifty sachems were the only official characters known at the 
councils of the confederacy. The sub-sachems and chiefs 
had nothing to say. And unanimity, as in the Polish diet, 
was always necessary. Over this council, the tlia-do-da-hoh, 
or great sachem of the confederacy, presided. He was 
always taken from the Onondagas, as we heretofore supposed ; 
but what is very important, it is denied that there was any 
such officer as a tokarihogea, or military chieftain over the 
confederacy. They recognize no such office, and deny that 
Brant was any thing but a chief, or an officer of the third 
and lowest class. I sifted this matter thoroughly, in conver- 
sations with Blacksmith, Le Fort, Capt. Frost, and Dr. Wilson, 
a Cayuga, and am satisfied, that the tha-do-da-hoh* was the 
chief ruler of the Iroquois, and that they had no other. We 
fell into this error by following Stone, who in the life of 
Brant, pretends to establish in him the title of war chieftain 
or tokarihogea of the confederacy. In relation to the heatf 
warriors or military leaders of the nations, there is still some 
obscurity. The Seneca nation has two, but the other nations 
none. The truth is, the learning, if we may so call it, of 
the Iroquois, is in the hands of a few, and it is very difficult 
to reach it, as those who are the most learned are the most 
inveterate Indians, and the least communicative. 

Their laws of descent are quite intricate. They follow the 
female line, and as the children always follow the tribe of the 
mother, and the man never is allowed to marry in his own 
tribe, it follows that the father and son are never of the same 
tribe, and hence the son can never succeed the father, because 
the sachemship runs in Ihe tribe of the father. It really is 
([uite surprising to find such permanent original instilutions 

• This is a Seneca pronunciation of tlie name wiitten ^totarho, by 
Cusick, and Tatotarho, by another and older authority. For a figure of 
this noted primary ruler, as it is given in Iro(iuois picture writing, see 
page 01. — S. 



ORIGINAL NOTES. 497 

among the Iroquois, and still more surprising that these in- 
stitutions have never seen the light. It' I can construct a ta- 
ble of descents with any approach to accuracy, I will send it 
down to the Historical Society. The idea at the foundation 
of their law of descent, is quite a comment upon human na- 
ture. The child must be the son of the mother, though he 
may not be of his mother's husband — quite and absolutely 
an original code. 

The object of this council was to "raise up sachems" in 
the place of those who had died. It would require more room 
than twenty letters would furnish to explain what we saw 
and heard — the mode of election and deposition — the lament 
for the dead — the wampum — the two sides of the council 
fire, &c., &c., and the other ceremonies connected with raising 
up sachems; also the dances, the preaching, and the feast. 

We were well received by the Indians, and they seemed 
disposed to give us whatever information we desired on the 
religious system of the Iroquois, their marriage and burial 
rites, &c. 



KING HENDRICK. 

The following note in relation to King Hendrick, was re- 
ceived from G. F. Yates, Esq., dated Albany, July 17, 1847, 
after the sketch on page 413 had gone through the press. 

Dear sir: In the hurried notice I gave you of King Hen- 
drick, not having turned my attention to the subject for many 
years, several things escaped my memory with which I had 
been once familiar. In my notes I had a mem., referring 
to Mrs. Grant's American Lady. That work I have not 
perused since a mere youth, and it was not at hand when I 
penned my notice of Hendrick. I reperused it yesterday, 
and deem it of importance to give you the testimony on certain 
points mooted in my notice, which this authoress furnishes. 
She wrote these memoirs more than thirty years after her 
return to Scotland, " unassisted by written memorials," and 
64 



498 HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS. 

as she'herself says, may have mistaken dates and misplaced 
facts. She was herself born in 1755, two years after old 
Hendrick's death, and fixes the date of his visit, with three 
other sachems and Col. Schuyler, to England, in 1708 and 
1709. With these data in the reader's mind, he may be able 
to imderstand the following passage from Mrs. Grant's me- 
moirs. 

" It was the fortune of the writer of these memoirs more 
than thirty years after, to see that great warrioi- and faithful 
ally of the British crown, the redoubted King Hendrick, then 
sovereign of the Five Nations, splendidly arrayed in a suit of 
light blue, made in an antique mode, and trimmed with broad 
silver lace, which was probably an heir loom in the family, 
presented to his father by his good ally and sister, the fe- 
male king of England." 

She here evidently speaks of the son of old King Hendrick, 
as arrayed in a suit of his father. This leads us to infer, 
that the son succeeded to the titles and dignity of his father, 
and must have enjoyed the same until his death, which was 
followed by the installation of Thayendanegea or Brant, as 
his successor; for it was him we find at the commencement 
of the revolution, acknowledged as the chief captain of the 
Mohawks, and minister plenipotentiary of the said Five Na- 
tions. 



